Behaviors depend on the social environment, age, gender, as in the place where we live, analyze, in their work, Philippe Coulangeon, Yoann Demoli, Maël Ginsburger and Ivaylo Petev
by Claire Legros
Book. Faced with ecological crises, the evolution of our behavior often escapes reason. If environmental awareness is now generalized to all the components of the population in France, it remains unequal and is not accompanied, or too little, changes in lifestyles, however essential.
It is these contradictions and these resistances that the ecological conversion of the French is interested. Contradictions and cleavages, work written by four sociologists, notably from the “Lifestyle and Environment” survey “conducted in 2017. Two series of questions were asked to a representative sample of the French population: on their attitude to the regard for environmental themes and on their daily practices in terms of consumption, travel, leisure and housing.
The crossing of these data reveals a contrasting panorama where different parameters (age, social category, gender, etc.) influence practices. Thus, the wealthiest populations readily adopt a sustainable diet (less meat, purchases of organic products), but without giving up motorized travel. The size of their housing often determines a level of consumption and high equipment. If they sort their waste more than others, it is also because it consumes more and produce a lot.
The conversion of practices is also “strongly differentiated according to gender”, underline the authors: women consume less meat, travel less often and have less powerful vehicles.
contradictions and cleavages
Among people concerned about the environmental crisis, a third of individuals – the oldest, the least graduate and the poorest in medium -sized cities – keep a “relative confidence” in human capacities to find technical solutions to ecological problems , when the others are wary of technical progress.
From these cleavages emerge four profiles “strongly anchored socially and geographically”. The first two are consonant: they associate ecological concern with a change in lifestyle, and environmental indifference with a high level of consumption. The other two are dissonant: frugality can be constrained, “without intention”, when the financial situation imposes it, while a strong environmental conscience can be associated with a consumption of travel or goods.
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