How to reduce household food waste: studying the impact of famine memory on reducing household food waste

Abstract

Memories of hunger among peoples who experienced famine are still pervasive and passed down from generation to generation, permeating today’s eating habits and choices. Residents’ desires to reduce food waste are significantly impacted by memories of famine. To explore the mechanism of famine memory on reducing food waste, this study included famine memory as a variable and developed an extended research model. Based on the survey of 384 valid questionnaires in Harbin, a structural equation model was employed to analyze the variables influencing the intention of residents to reduce food waste. This study found a significant positive relationship between residents’ intention to reduce food waste and their attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control. Furthermore, attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control were all positively and significantly impacted by famine memory. In addition, famine memory had significant indirect effects on food waste reduction intentions through attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. We also examined the moderated mediation effects, found that gender and age had no significant moderating effect on the three parallel mediating effects. None earlier study has examined the effect of collective memory on reducing household food waste. By incorporating famine memory and simultaneously examining the mediating and moderating effects, this study created a unique theoretical model, thus supplemented the previous literature. This paper raises awareness of residents’ intentions to reduce food waste, which is beneficial for residents to reduce food waste and achieve sustainable development goals.