Pro-environmental food practices in EU countries strongly suggest mutually reinforcing improvements in gender equality and environmental sustainability

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand how pro-environmental food practices among women and men in the EU can be supported by considering the interlinkages between gender equality and environmental sustainability. A special aspect is that the role of gender equality is interpreted in terms of Schwartz's theory on national cultural values, which relates gender equality to cultures that emphasize intellectual autonomy and egalitarianism. The paper investigated how pro-environmental food practices (including meat reduction) among women and men correlated with their countries' national income level and its level of gender equality. It was a multilevel analysis of survey data from 27 countries (Eurobarometer 95.1, Spring 2021). Considering that studies about gender equality and the environment often find problematically high correlations between gender equality and national income, this study focused on political gender equality (i.e. women's representation in parliament), which had desirable characteristics. National income and political gender equality had complementary impacts on the adoption of pro-environmental food practices (including meat reduction). Men reported more target practices when living in richer countries; the same applied even more strongly to women when living in richer and more politically gender-balanced countries. It was concluded that women may have developed more autonomy by, inter alia, adopting pro-environmental food practices. At the level of individual behavior, this illustrates “mutually reinforcing dynamics” in the pursuit of gender equality and environmental sustainability goals.