Abstract
Environmental problems have become one of the top concerns in Vietnam since 2016. This study aimed to investigate what groups of people were most concerned about the environment and to what extent their concerns differed from each other. Logistic regression models were used to perform the analyses. The analysis on the gender - environmental concern relationship indicated that males were more likely to be concerned about the environment than females. The age - environmental concern relationship suggested higher concern levels of younger people as compared to older people. In the examination of the social class - environmental concern relationship, people who were wealthier, well-educated, and had greater occupational prestige tended to have more concerns. People with higher education levels also expressed higher levels of concern toward the environment. People with postgraduate degrees reported the highest level of concern, while people with no formal education showed the least concern. From the perspective of the political involvement - environmental concern relationship, it was shown that while people who were not a member of any organization were the least environmentally concerned, the members of university alumni associations were the most concerned. Finally, the exploration of the residence - environmental concern relationship pointed out that Kinh people were more environmentally concerned than Vietnamese ethnic minority groups, and people in the North Central Coast paid the highest attention to the environment in Vietnam.
Highlights
Environmental problems resulting from economic growth have increasingly attracted public concerns in Vietnam in recent years
To identify the factors that influenced the citizens’ environmental concerns and how citizens with different sociodemographic characteristics differed in their levels of concern, we identified a series of factors and grouped citizens in different categories, namely social class, age, gender, political involvement, and residence
By comparing the concern levels among people in different regions, the analysis found that people in the North Central Coast of Vietnam were the most concerned about the environment, while people in the South-East South and Mekong River Delta were less concerned than those in other regions
Summary
Environmental problems resulting from economic growth have increasingly attracted public concerns in Vietnam in recent years. Industry and construction are the major sectors that boost economic growth but are the main contributors to environmental pollution (MONRE, 2014) These include water pollution due to discharge from industrial factories, air pollution due to intense construction activities, the increased number of vehicles in big cities, and the development of fossil fuel thermal power plants, etc. One of the worst and the most well-known environmental disasters in Vietnam was the fish kill tragedy caused by toxic waste spilt from the Formosa Ha Tinh steel plant in April 2016 (Nguyen, 2017; Sands, 2017). This disaster has significantly affected Vietnamese citizens’ concern towards the environment (CECODES et al, 2017). This study aimed to fill in this gap of knowledge by exploring the complex linkages between public environmental concerns and sociodemographic characteristics
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