Replication Data for: Education As Institutionalized Diffusion Path: A Mechanism For The Rise Of Environmental Concern

In this paper, we investigated the relationship between SES and environmental concern. We identify three shortcomings in existing empirical work: (1) inconsistent measure of environmental concern across countries; (2) miscoding/ incorrect testing of non-linear relationship, specifically cohort effect; and (3) the failure to distinguish education and income as proxies for SES. Furthermore, as an advancement of existing theory, we argue that education, as an institutionalized ideology diffusion tool, functions through an essentially distinct mechanism on environmental concern, compared to income. Treating education and income as equivalent proxy for SES oversimplifies the causal process. Moreover, whether the effect of education varies across cohorts is contingent on nation-level idiosyncratic characteristics. We test our theory in the context of United States using General Social Survey, three developed countries, Canada, Japan, and Germany, and three developing countries, India, China, and Mexico using World Value Survey.

本文探讨了社会经济地位（Socioeconomic Status，SES）与环境关切之间的关联。本文指出了现有实证研究存在的三大缺陷：其一，各国环境关切的测量标准不统一；其二，对非线性关系（尤其是队列效应）存在编码错误或检验不当的问题；其三，未能区分教育与收入作为社会经济地位的代理变量。此外，作为对现有理论的拓展，本文提出：与收入相比，教育作为一种制度化的意识形态传播工具，其对环境关切的作用机制存在本质差异。将教育与收入等同视为社会经济地位的代理变量，会过度简化其因果作用路径。进一步而言，教育的影响是否随队列不同而产生差异，取决于国家层面的异质性特征。本文以美国为研究场景，借助综合社会调查（General Social Survey）开展实证检验；同时选取加拿大、日本、德国三个发达国家，以及印度、中国、墨西哥三个发展中国家，通过世界价值调查（World Value Survey）对理论进行验证。