Young Women More Likely To Care About Climate Change: Study

Fairfax - Mary Ward

Young women are much more likely to care about climate change than young men, a small Australian study has found.
According to a survey of students aged 18-33 at Western Sydney University, young women are eight times more likely to believe processes of climate change will affect their lives than their male counterparts.

Young women are more likely to be concerned by climate change. Photo: Stocksy

Tonia Gray, associate professor at Western Sydney University's School of Education and a co-author of the study, said she believed the result was, in part, because women are more likely to possess a "legacy mindset".
"They are concerned for the next generation. They are thinking: What am I going to leave? How am I going to make the world a better place."
The results are in line with US and European studies, which have also shown women are more likely to believe in climate change than men. A 2005 University of Oregon analysis found countries with higher numbers of women in parliament were more likely to have ratified environmental treaties.
Globally, women are also more likely to be impacted by the effects of climate change than men. The UN estimates 80 per cent of the people displaced by climate change are women.
The group surveyed by Western Sydney University had, like all people born after February 1985, only ever lived in a world with rising monthly temperatures.
While all those surveyed said they had heard about climate change, only half were able to name a key event that had occurred in the previous year related to climate change.
When asked to describe their emotions towards climate change, "fear" was the most common response, with 47 per cent of survey participants choosing this emotion. In contrast, 17 per cent of respondents said they had "no emotion" about climate change, a response given by nearly twice as many surveyed men than women.
Just over half (51 per cent) of those surveyed thought they could not personally change the course of climate change, with women more optimistic about the impact of their individual contribution.
The young people surveyed cited climate scientists as the people they trusted most for information about climate change. Politicians were rated as the least reliable source of information on climate change, followed by social media.

Links

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• Mary Robinson Launches New Feminist Fight Against Climate Change
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• Margaret Atwood: Women Will Bear Brunt Of Dystopian Climate Future
• Where Women Lead On Climate Change
• Indigenous Women Show The Way For Banks To Divest From Fossil Fuels
• Climate Change 'Impacts Women More Than Men'
• Women Key To Fight Against Climate Change
• When Environmental Crises Hit Homes, Women Suffer The Most
• To Stop Climate Change, Educate Girls And Give Them Birth Control
• Lack Of Women In Energy ‘Holding Back Fight Against Climate Change’