Age, Period and Cohort Shifts in Environmental Values in Europe

Gumral Alirzayeva , Tallinn University
Liili Abuladze, Estonian Institute for Population Studies, Tallinn University

Recent demographic research has focused primarily on the relationship between population dynamics and the environment, but how environmental attitudes and values vary across demographic groups and evolve over time receives less attention. This study investigates environmental values by using the age, period, and cohort (APC) method. We use a sample of 58838 respondents from 11 European countries across four waves of the World Values Survey (Wave 3: 1995–1998; Wave 5: 2005–2009; Wave 6: 2010–2014; Wave 7: 2017–2022). The corresponding birth cohorts include individuals born between 1910 and 2002. The study aims to disentangle the effects of age, period, and cohort in environmental value change across Europe. Based on the proposed hypotheses, age is not expected to significantly influence environmental value change. Preliminary analysis is expected to reveal that younger cohorts exhibit stronger environmentally minded attitudes than older cohorts, reflecting generational socialization around environmental concerns. In Western Europe, cohorts born before the 1970s are expected to show stronger environmentally minded attitudes than their Eastern European counterparts, while in Eastern Europe, cohorts born since the 1980s are predicted to show increased environmentally minded attitudes relative to older cohorts, independent of age and period effects. This study also hypothesizes that period-specific developments, such as heightened public attention to environmental issues, international climate agreements, or environmental crises, will reflect the emergence of environmentally minded attitudes across Europe, whereas periods marked by economic instability, political crises, or security concerns suppress them, independent of age and birth cohort effects.

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 Presented in Session P34. Environment, Fertility and Mobility