There has been an intense yet inconclusive debate over the impacts of socioeconomic status (SES) and postmaterialism on environmental concern. Recent years have seen a growing interest in addressing the controversy by exploring the conditioning effect of social context. Previous studies of inequality argue that it unevenly exposes people to environmental degradation, reduces social cooperation, and erodes egalitarian values. This study integrates the two lines of research by linking social inequality to environmental sustainability and examines the extent to which inequality shapes the impact of SES and postmaterialism on environmental concern in the cross-national intercohort context. Analyses of multiple waves of the World Values Survey data using the hierarchical age-period-cohort modeling techniques suggest that contextual inequality substantially attenuates the effects of SES and postmaterialism. This relationship is consistent across countries with different economic development levels and more pronounced in older cohorts. The current study illustrates the importance of careful consideration of social conditions, the unequal distribution of income in particular, when examining predictors of environmental concern, and sheds light on the theorization of a more inclusive, balanced human-nature relationship.

中文翻译：

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不平等世界中社会经济地位、后物质主义和环境关注的脱钩：跨国队列间分析


关于社会经济地位 （SES） 和后物质主义对环境问题的影响，一直存在着激烈但尚无定论的辩论。近年来，人们越来越热衷于通过探索社会环境的制约效应来解决争议。以前对不平等的研究认为，它不均衡地使人们面临环境退化，减少了社会合作，并侵蚀了平等主义价值观。本研究通过将社会不平等与环境可持续性联系起来，整合了两条研究方向，并研究了不平等在多大程度上塑造了 SES 和后物质主义在跨国队列背景下对环境问题的影响。使用分层年龄-时期-队列建模技术对多波世界价值观调查数据的分析表明，环境不平等大大削弱了 SES 和后物质主义的影响。这种关系在不同经济发展水平的国家之间是一致的，在老年人群中更为明显。目前的研究说明了在研究环境问题的预测因素时仔细考虑社会条件的重要性，尤其是收入分配不平等，并阐明了更具包容性、平衡的人与自然关系的理论化。