Willingness to Pay for Improved Air Quality and Influencing Factors among Manufacturing Workers in Nanchang, China

Rong Liu,Zhaokang Yuan,Bingbing Pan,Hui Zhu,Xiaojun Liu,Yuanan Lu

doi:10.3390/su10051613

Abstract

(1) Background: Air quality apt to deteriorate in decades in China, people are seeking improvement measures. To assess the willingness to pay (WTP) for improved air quality among manufacturing workers and associated factors influencing their WTP. (2) Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted in combination with contingent valuation in Nanchang between September and October of 2015. A face-to-face interview was conducted to obtain basic demographic information from manufacturing workers and to understand their WTP for air quality improvement. (3) Results: A total of 600 effective questionnaires were collected in this study and showed that more than half of the respondents (53%) expressed their WTP for improved air quality. Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that the main factors associated with manufacturing workers’ WTP were their residence areas, education level, annual household income and travel experience. (4) Conclusions: These findings have provided (a) important information of the concern and desire for air pollution control through their WTP from manufacturing workers, (b) baseline information for the policy-maker and local government for their development of more effective policy in air pollution prevention and control and (c) the need for more study for WTP among different population groups in future.

Highlights

With the rapid development of world economics, prominent air pollution has become more serious today and increased adverse impact on human health has been reported due to the excessive emissions from industrial and other resources [1,2,3]
A total of 320 manufacturing workers showed their willing to pay for improving air quality in this study, which account for 53.3%
Being an urban population group in cities engaged in industry process, which are linked to large air pollutants [48,49], manufacturing workers’ attitude to current air pollution could be interested and important

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid development of world economics, prominent air pollution has become more serious today and increased adverse impact on human health has been reported due to the excessive emissions from industrial and other resources [1,2,3]. The air pollution has remained to be a notable and challenging issue in China and the amount of government money invested is still very limited [7] A recent questionnaire survey study has shown that over 95% of students from Nanchang University believed that the involvement of funding and action and the responsibility and obligation of every citizen are indispensable to improve air quality [18]. This study is directed to understand the attitude of manufacturing workers toward their WTP for improving air quality. Manufacturing workers were chosen as the object for this study basing on the understanding that the manufactory industry constitutes an important air pollution source [26], while manufacturing workers are the ones who are directly suffering polluted air and serious health risk

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion