The common belief that once you have children you worry more about climate change would seem to be something of a no-brainer.
After all, every parent wants their children to grow up in a world without catastrophic floods and crop-destroying droughts.
But new research suggests otherwise: The birth of a child has only a minor impact on parents’ environmental concerns, according to a study by researchers at Ireland’s Trinity College Dublin and Germany’s Oldenburg University.
“Our study shows that the widespread assumption that people become more concerned about the environment and climate after the birth of a child cannot be confirmed in such general terms,” said sociologist Gundula Zoch from Oldenburg University.
The study’s initial hypothesis was based on the belief that parents want to ensure a safe future for their children and fear that environmental and climate problems could jeopardise this.
“In reality, however, our results show that parents tend to report slightly fewer concerns about the environment and climate around the time of childbirth,” Zoch says.
The reason for this, she says, lies in the fact that life with a baby brings other, more immediate priorities. Environmental and climate protection take a back seat.
Only when children reach school age do parents express similar concerns to those they had before the birth. For the study, Zoch and a colleague analysed survey data from Germany collected annually since 1984. – dpa
