Environmental Attitudes and Subjective Well-being in Urban China

We examine how environmental attitudes influence subjective well-being in urban China. We find that considering environmental protection important on its own has no effect on subjective wellbeing; however, those who consider environmental protection important and have a higher sense of collectivism or concern for others have a lower level of subjective well-being. We interpret this result as individuals who are environmentally aware and have a higher propensity to care about collective outcomes have lower subjective well-being because they are more concerned about the implications of the state of the environment in China for society as a whole. We also examine how environmental awareness interacts with government efficacy to influence subjective well-being. We find that those who think environmental protection is important but who have a low perception of government efficacy, have lower subjective well-being. We interpret these results as individuals who have higher environmental awareness having lower levels of subjective well-being if they believe that the government is unwilling or unable to address environmental issues.