Previous research

The willingness to accept material sacrifices for environmental causes has been studied from different theoretical perspectives and operationalised in various ways. Among the more common ways of operationalising it are measures of attitudes towards accepting different economic costs, such as paying higher taxes, prices (e.g. Franzen & Vogl, Reference Franzen and Vogl2013; Harring & Jagers, Reference Harring and Jagers2013; Davidovic et al., Reference Davidovic, Harring and Jagers2020), or accepting cuts to one’s living standard for the sake of environmental protection (Harring, Reference Harring2013). The following research overview will focus on studies that have examined the determinants behind such attitudes cross-country and comparatively.

Previous studies have analysed attitudes towards material sacrifices as part of a generalized ‘environmental concern’ (Dunlap & York, Reference Dunlap and York2008; Fairbrother, Reference Fairbrother2013; Franzen & Meyer, Reference Franzen and Meyer2010; Franzen & Vogl, Reference Franzen and Vogl2013; Lo, Reference Lo2016), drawing on Ronald Inglehart’s post-materialism thesis to examine how environmental concern vary within and across countries. Inglehart (Reference Inglehart1995) argued that environmental attitudes are linked to a sense of existential security that arises from having physical and economical security. When provided with such security, individuals shift their attention from ‘materialistic’ concerns to ‘post materialistic’ concerns such as environmental sustainability (Inglehart, Reference Inglehart1995, Reference Inglehart2008). Economic development and the welfare state are key elements in this process. While economic development provide resources for economic security, the level of security provided in a society is mediated by the welfare state (Inglehart, Reference Inglehart2008, pp. 132–133). Yet, when examining Inglehart’s claim, researchers have commonly focused on the relationship between economic development and attitudes, analysing how country wealth, measured as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, relate to attitudes towards accepting material sacrifices for environmental causes (Dunlap & York, Reference Dunlap and York2008; Fairbrother, Reference Fairbrother2013; Franzen & Vogl, Reference Franzen and Vogl2013; Lo, Reference Lo2016). However, compared to welfare state generosity – the degree of economic protection welfare states provide citizens with – GDP per capita is less suitable as an indicator of the level of economic security provided in a country, as welfare state generosity can be thought to impact citizens sense of economic security more directly than general levels of economic affluence (see Scruggs & Allan, Reference Scruggs and Allan2006). Yet, so far, no study has examined how welfare state generosity affects attitudes towards accepting material sacrifices for the sake of the environment.

Another strand of the literature has emphasised the importance of political trust and the quality of state institutions in shaping attitudes. While people may value environmental protection, political distrust and poor quality of government are likely to make them less willing to make economic sacrifices in the form of paying higher taxes and prices (Harring, Reference Harring2013; Davidovic et al., Reference Davidovic, Harring and Jagers2020; Fairbrother, Reference Fairbrother2022). Harring (Reference Harring2013) finds a positive individual-level effect of political trust on attitudes towards accepting material sacrifices for the sake of the environment and Fairbrother (Reference Fairbrother2016) on attitudes both at the individual and country level. Davidovic et al. (Reference Davidovic, Harring and Jagers2020) find that the quality of government moderates support for environmental taxes at the country level, with a greater willingness to pay higher taxes in countries with high levels of governmental quality. Yet, largely missing from the literature on political trust and attitudes towards accepting sacrifices is a consideration of the effects of welfare state generosity on attitudes. While empirical studies are limited, research suggest that welfare state generosity has a positive and causal effect on political trust (Kumlin & Haugsgjerd, Reference Kumlin, Haugsgjerd, Zmerli and van der Meer2017; Kumlin et al., Reference Kumlin, Stadelmann-Steffen, Haugsgjerd and Uslaner2018).

When welfare state characteristics have been examined in relation to environmental attitudes, it has often been done by comparing countries according to Esping-Andersen’s (Reference Esping-Andersen1990) welfare state regime typology. A common finding has been that people in countries associated with the social democratic welfare state regime are more willing to accept material sacrifices compared to people in liberal and conservative welfare states, either by paying for environmental protection (Jones et al., Reference Jones2009), accepting higher taxes on fossil fuels (Marquart-Pyatt et al., Reference Marquart-Pyatt2019; Otto & Gugushvili, Reference Otto and Gugushvili2020; Sivonen & Kukkonen, Reference Sivonen and Kukkonen2021) or accepting cuts in their level of living standard (Koch & Fritz, Reference Koch and Fritz2014). However, by analysing countries according to welfare state regimes, studies have not provided detailed examinations of the effect of specific welfare state programmes on attitudes.

One study, by Parth and Vlandas (Reference Parth and Vlandas2022), has examined how variations in specific social policy measures relate to environmental attitudes. Referencing Inglehart, Parth, and Vlandas argue that generous welfare states make people safer by providing economic security and satisfying short-term material needs, which in turn enable individuals to focus on ‘post-material’ environmental concerns. However, they do not elaborate on the supposed mechanism behind this effect. Empirically, they examine 2019 Eurobarometer public opinion survey data and country-level indicators of welfare state generosity in 22 European countries. They operationalise pro-environmental behaviour using measures of individual considerations and actions regarding energy consumption, carbon footprint, waste recycling, and consumption. Welfare state generosity is operationalised as percentage of social expenditures of GDP and income replacements rates for unemployment and pension insurances. Parth and Vlandas find that welfare state generosity is positively associated with attitudes towards pro-environmental action among members of the working class. The opposite is found for the elderly, who are less likely to support environmental action when pension generosity is high. However, their study provides only a limited assessment of welfare state generosity. As emphasized in the literature on comparative welfare state research (e.g. Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990; Kangas & Palme, Reference Kangas, Palme, Clasen and Siegel2007; Scruggs, Reference Scruggs2008; Sjöberg, Reference Sjöberg2010), a comprehensive assessment of welfare state generosity requires taking several aspects of the provision of welfare state support into account.Footnote ¹ With regards to social insurances, this entails making a combined assessment of different insurance programme characteristics: in addition to income replacement levels, one also need to consider duration periods, programme coverage levels and eligibility criteria. A social insurance programme may well offer generous replacement rates, but if only provided to a small number of recipients or for a limited duration, the overall generosity may still be limited (Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990, p. 49).

In addition to large scale survey studies, experimental studies have recently sought to examine the relationship between individual economic circumstances and attitudes. A study in Switzerland found that, when faced with the choice of supporting policies of either environmental protection or income redistribution, short-term individual economic interests was the main determinant of individual choice (Armingeon & Bürgisser, Reference Armingeon and Bürgisser2021). Similarly, a survey experiment on German and American respondents found that acceptance of carbon taxation was first and foremost determined by individual economic concerns (Beiser-McGrath & Bernauer, Reference Beiser-McGrath and Bernauer2020). Such findings suggest that individual economic concerns play an important role in shaping attitudes towards environmental policies and material sacrifices. More generally, research also suggests that support for material sacrifices in the form of carbon taxation or increased fossil fuel costs may increase when revenues are recycled to benefit particularly exposed households or social groups (Beiser-McGrath & Bernauer, Reference Beiser-McGrath and Bernauer2019; Gaikwad et al., Reference Gaikwad, Genovese and Tingley2022; Klenert et al., Reference Klenert2018).

To sum up, while previous research has made considerable headway in understanding how attitudes towards material sacrifices for environmental protection are shaped, the importance of welfare state programmes, and social insurances in particular, have not been examined in-depth. When these institutions have been examined, analyses have relied on empirical measures that do not fully capture the multidimensional nature of social insurance generosity. Furthermore, previous research has not attempted to provide an elaborate theoretical account regarding the relationship between social insurance generosity and support for environmental protection. This study seeks to address these gaps in the following way. Firstly, it presents a theoretical argument regarding the effect of social insurance generosity on attitudes. Secondly, it analyses the effect of social insurance generosity on attitudes towards material sacrifices using comprehensive measures on the provision of social insurances.

Theory and hypotheses

Drawing on Inglehart’s notion of existential security, I propose that social insurance generosity increases individual economic security, which in turn facilitates greater willingness to accept material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection.Footnote ² The mechanism behind this is risk reduction. Through the provision of income insurances, welfare states reduce the risk of not being able to maintain a sufficiently high level of material living conditions, thereby making people more willing to accept material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection.

Protection against social risks is a central theme in social policy theorising. Protection against risks such as unemployment, sickness, and old-age are considered key tasks of the welfare state (e.g. Bonoli, Reference Bonoli2005; Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990; Korpi & Palme, Reference Korpi and Palme1998). Esping-Andersen (Reference Esping-Andersen1990) famously identified welfare state regimes according to the degree to which they granted citizens’ social rights offering protection against such risks. By providing social insurance protection that allowed citizens to make their living standards independent of pure market forces, welfare states provided citizens with protection against social risks; a process which he called decommodification (Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990, p. 3). According to Esping-Andersen (Reference Esping-Andersen1990), the degree of protection offered in different welfare states in turn reflected different political histories and the balance of power between economic classes. As others have noted, this approach to analysing welfare states (Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990; Korpi & Palme, Reference Korpi and Palme1998) essentially relies on a consideration of the generosity and universalism of social insurance programmes (Scruggs, Reference Scruggs2007).

Social insurances play a central role in the regulation of individual risks. As insurances, they provide direct support to those in need, but also protection against economic uncertainty and assurance regarding future material conditions. As argued by Sjöberg (Reference Sjöberg2010), social insurance systems have effects that extend beyond those who directly utilise them, providing assurance to those who currently may not be in receipt of support. The mere knowledge that public insurance systems exist and that they provide some degree of economic protection can provide assurance regarding future material conditions for a wider population: sickness and unemployment insurances provide assurance regarding economic conditions in case of unemployment or sickness, and pension insurances in case of old age or early retirement.

The assurance provided by social insurance schemes can also be thought to effect environmental attitudes. When the generosity of social insurance systems is low, individuals are more likely to consider their own material possessions as potential means of economic insurance in case of a loss of income. With no or low levels of income protection, individuals must rely mainly on private means, such as savings and other material possessions, to secure their subsistence following a loss of earnings. Under such circumstances, individuals are less likely to accept material sacrifices for environmental causes, as it poses a greater risk to their own means of subsistence in case of a loss of income.

Conversely, when generous economic protection is provided through social insurance systems, individuals are less likely to be concerned about securing their own means of economic protection following a loss of income. Knowing that one will not need to rely solely or mainly on private means, individuals are more likely to be willing to accept material sacrifices for environmental protection, as such sacrifices are less likely to be considered a risk to their future subsistence. Thus, by lessening the risks associated with the acceptance of material sacrifices, greater social insurance generosity is likely to make people more inclined to accept material sacrifices than they otherwise would be. This can be referred to as the assurance effect of social insurance generosity.

As protection is provided in the form of insurances, the assurance effect is likely to extend beyond those who are in direct receipt of support, with the overall level of social insurance generosity in a society having an effect on the attitudes of the general population.

• Hypothesis 1a: the overall level of social insurance generosity is positively associated with attitudes towards accepting material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection among the general population.

Furthermore, the assurance effect of individual social insurance programmes can also be thought to affect the attitudes of social groups who are most likely to use them for support in case of a loss of earnings. For sickness insurance schemes, this concerns the working population. For unemployment insurance schemes, the working population and the unemployed.

• Hypothesis 1b: sickness insurance generosity is positively associated with attitudes towards accepting material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection among the working population.

• Hypothesis 1c: unemployment insurance generosity is positively associated with attitudes towards accepting material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection among the working population.

• Hypothesis 1d: unemployment insurance generosity is positively associated with attitudes towards accepting material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection among the unemployed.

Another relevant social group are retirees. Many retirees are likely to be senior citizens. It is possible that they, because of their age, may be less inclined to accept material sacrifices for protecting the environment than others. Investments in environmental protection are generally paid for by currently living generations. Yet, the benefits of these investments may only arise many years into the future. Due to their shorter remaining life spans, senior citizens may profit less from these future benefits. It is therefore possible that retirees may value their own material conditions over environmental protection, regardless of the level of social insurance generosity provided to them. Yet, it is also possible that pension insurance generosity may affect the attitudes of retirees in the same way as it is thought to effect other social groups, namely by providing them with a form of assurance that make them more willing to accept sacrifices. Thus, in line with the general theoretical argument of the study, it is hypothesised that the generosity of pension insurances will have a positive effect on the attitudes of retirees.

• Hypothesis 1e: pension insurance generosity is positively associated with attitudes towards accepting material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection among retirees.

Furthermore, it is possible that the generosity of social insurance programmes has a distinct effect on the attitudes of low-income households. As low-income households may experience a greater increase in their relative economic margins with higher levels of social insurance generosity, they may also experience a stronger sense of assurance compared to other households. Based on this, the following hypothesis if formulated.

• Hypothesis 2: social insurance generosity is positively associated with attitudes towards accepting material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection, particularly among low-income households.

Data

The hypotheses presented above are tested with individual-level data from the ISSP 2010 Environment module III, data file version 3.0.0 (ISSP Research Group, 2019) and country-level data on social insurance programme generosity from CWEP, version 2022-01 (Scruggs, Reference Scruggs2022a). The ISSP Environment module is a cross-national social survey focusing on individual-level attitudes towards environmental issues. Data is collected at the household level with adults as the target population. Data for the Environment module III was collected between 2010 and 2012 using self-completion questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, or both. Respondents were chosen using a systematic multistage random sampling procedure, with no two respondents from the same household in the same sample. The full sample contains 26,510 individual observations from nineteen countries (listed below in Table 1). Information on the number of individual-level observations per country can be found in Table S1 in Appendix. Survey data for the United Kingdom refers to the area of Great Britain. Although relatively dated, the ISSP Environment module III offers one of the most comprehensive international survey datasets on attitudes towards material sacrifices which also include extensive background information on respondents.

CWEP contains cross-country comparative information on the provision of rights-based national social insurance benefit programmes in advanced industrialised countries. It contains information on a variety of institutional characteristics related to the provision of social insurances, including multidimensional measures specifically designed to capture the generosity of insurance programmes. Originally developed to replicate the indicators on decommodification used by Esping-Andersen (Reference Esping-Andersen1990), it is considered a primary source of data on quantified legislated social rights (Bolukbasi & Öktem, Reference Bolukbasi and Öktem2018; Scruggs, Reference Scruggs2007; Scruggs & Ramalho Tafoya, Reference Scruggs and Ramalho Tafoya2022). It offers state-of-the-art tools for analysing social insurance characteristics and has been widely used in empirical research on social inequality and welfare states (CWED, 2017; Scruggs, Reference Scruggs2022b; Scruggs & Ramalho Tafoya, Reference Scruggs and Ramalho Tafoya2022).

CWEP data with sufficient coverage and quality is available for the following nineteen countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Data refers to the year 2010. While the inclusion of additional countries in the analysis would be desirable, the given selection include high-income countries with high living standards and social insurance systems that vary in terms of generosity (see Figure 1), making them interesting and relevant cases to study.

Figure 1.

Social insurance generosity index values for countries included in the study.

Source: Scruggs (Reference Scruggs2022a)

The study also include data on country level economic conditions sourced from the World Bank database (World Bank, 2022), described below. Descriptive statistics for the variables included in the study can be found in Table S2 in Appendix.

Operationalisation of variables

Willingness to accept material sacrifices for environmental protection

Willingness to accept material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection is measured using a survey item from the ISSP. The measure is constructed from the survey question: ‘And how willing would you be to accept cuts in your standard of living in order to protect the environment?’. Responses are captured on a five-point Likert scale with values ranging from 1 to 5: (1) very willing, (2) fairly willing, (3) neither willing nor unwilling, (4) fairly unwilling, and (5) very unwilling. The original values have been reversed so that a higher value indicates a greater willingness. Table 1 shows descriptive statistics for the dependent variable.

Table 1.

Willingness to accept cuts in one’s living standard in order to protect the environment. Number of observations, mean value and standard deviation, per country. Variable values range from (min) 1 to (max) 5

Source: ISSP Research Group (2019). Missing values not included.

Prior studies on attitudes towards material sacrifices have mainly focused on attitudes towards accepting higher taxes or consumer prices for environmental protection (e.g. Fairbrother, Reference Fairbrother2013, Reference Fairbrother2016, see also Fairbrother, Reference Fairbrother2022; Davidovic et al., Reference Davidovic, Harring and Jagers2020). Less is known about attitudes towards other forms of sacrifices, including reductions in living standards. Still, the survey item has been used in previous research as an indicator on willingness to accept economic or material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection (e.g. Harring, Reference Harring2013; Lo, Reference Lo2016; Franzen & Meyer, Reference Franzen and Meyer2010). Admittedly, the measure is problematic as an indicator on the willingness to accept material sacrifices; the survey question does not make clear if ‘standard of living’ concerns solely material aspects, and respondents may interpret it as referencing also intangible aspects. Furthermore, the nature and the size of the cuts are not specified, leaving it up to the respondent to make their own assumptions as to what it may entail. Moreover, the survey question does not make explicit if it involves coercive or voluntary measures. Yet, as the question contains no reference to legislative or other regulatory measure, it seems likely that respondents will primarily consider it voluntary in nature. This distinguishes it from other forms of sacrifices, such as environmental taxes, which impose specific and compulsory regulation and imply high levels of state intervention (see Jones et al., Reference Jones2009).

Concluding discussion

By and large, the results of this study suggest that publicly provided social insurance can promote the acceptance of material sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection among citizens in high-income countries. The study’s analysis reveals a positive association between the overall level of social insurance generosity and the attitudes of the general public towards accepting material sacrifice, as well as between the generosity of specific social insurance programmes and the attitudes of workers and the unemployed. However, the findings also suggest that the effect of social insurance generosity on attitudes vary across social groups and insurance programmes. The generosity of the pension insurance does not appear to have an effect on the attitudes of retirees, nor does the generosity of insurance programmes appear to have a distinct positive effect on the attitudes of low-income households in general.

In comparison to previous research on the relationship between welfare state generosity and environmental attitudes (Parth & Vlandas, Reference Parth and Vlandas2022), this study has provided comprehensive indicators on the provision of major social insurance programmes to measure welfare state generosity. Within comparative social policy research, this is widely considered an ideal approach for studying welfare state generosity (Scruggs, Reference Scruggs2008). Moreover, while previous studies have examined attitudes towards environmentally friendly behaviour in general (Parth & Vlandas, Reference Parth and Vlandas2022), this study has focused on attitudes towards accepting personal costs to protect the environment. By doing so, the study provides one of the first comprehensive accounts of the effects of welfare state generosity on attitudes towards accepting individual costs for environmental protection.

The analysis provided in this study is closely related to the concept of decommodification (Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990), and the results suggest that decommodification may facilitate the acceptance of material sacrifices for environmental causes. This is a potentially important finding for policy making; the results indicate that environmental policies requiring material sacrifice may have an easier time gaining acceptance if accompanied by policies of decommodification. By focusing on the interplay between social and environmental protection, the study contributes to the growing field of research examining the relationship between welfare state systems and environmental sustainability (Fritz & Koch, Reference Fritz and Koch2019; García-García et al., Reference García-García, Buendía and Carpintero2022; Hirvilammi et al., Reference Hirvilammi2023; Koch & Fritz, Reference Koch and Fritz2014).

The study has some limitations. First, it is uncertain how respondents interpret the survey question used as the dependent variable regarding accepting cuts to one’s level of living standard. Second, the study uses cross-sectional data fielded at one particular point in time and from a limited number of countries. This limits the possibility of empirically assessing the causal relationship between welfare state generosity and attitudes. Future research may want to explore the relationship using longitudinal data and larger sets of cases. Scholars may also want to consider using alternative methods, such as qualitative interviews or survey experiments, to further investigate the connection between assurance and the willingness to accept sacrifices. Moreover, the argument presented in this study represent an attempt at formulating a theory on the relationship between welfare state generosity and attitudes towards material sacrifices for environmental causes. I encourage other scholars to engage with the argument presented in this paper in order to further establish its validity.