Abstract
The carbon intensity of well-being (CIWB) (a ratio measuring the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of life expectancy at birth) is an increasingly popular way to measure the ecological efficiency of nations. Although research demonstrates that economic development typically reduces this efficiency, little research has explored the extent to which social equality improves it. This study uses panel data for 70 nations between 1995 and 2013 to assess how various aspects of gender equality affect the ecological efficiency of nations. We estimate a series of Prais-Winsten regression models with panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) to assess how increases in the percentage of women in parliament, expected years of education for women, and the percentage of women in the labor force independently affect CIWB. Our findings indicate that across all nations, increases in the percentage of women in parliament and expected years of schooling reduce CIWB; however, increases in the percentage of women in the labor force increase CIWB. Our results further show that the relationship between different dimensions of gender equality and CIWB differs between more developed and less developed nations. Finally, we find that increases in the number of women in parliament and women’s education attenuate the relationship between women’s labor force participation and CIWB. We discuss the variation in our results by reviewing relevant eco-gender literatures and feminist economics.
Highlights
Climate change is arguably the greatest environmental threat humanity has ever confronted
Considering the myriad ties between the varied components of gender equality, CO2 emissions, and life expectancy at birth, we argue that our understandings of the social mechanisms that underlie the development of socio-ecological efficiency will be substantially deepened by incorporating measures of gender inequality into analyses of carbon intensity of well-being (CIWB)
Model 2 demonstrates that a similar set of associations exist for the relationships between women’s education, women’s participation in the labor force, and CIWB. Exploration of these interactions in developed countries (DCs) and less developed countries (LDCs) indicates that such associations remain fairly consistent across all nation groupings explored here. The exception to this consistency is the interaction between the percent of legislative seats held by women and the percent of women active in the labor force in DCs (Model 3), where we found that there is no significant interaction between these two aspects of gender equality
Summary
Climate change is arguably the greatest environmental threat humanity has ever confronted. It is global in scale, affects all other planetary systems, and is marked by increased average global temperatures, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather patterns. The latest IPCC report suggests that humanity has little over a decade to halve emissions, and until midcentury to cut emissions altogether, if we are to avoid a two-degrees rise in global average temperatures [1]. A two-degree rise in average temperatures would cause parts of the earth to be uninhabitable for humans and result in agricultural losses that would exacerbate poverty and lead to food shortages. Failing to adequately reduce emissions will likely result in a dramatic decline in well-being for most people the world over
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