Development and Structure of Environmental Worries in Germany 1984–2019

Abstract

Abstract Referring to a survey question in the German socio-economic panel, which measures worries about protecting the environment, the article looks at the development of environmental worries in Germany for the timespan 1984–2019. The analyses mainly have descriptive character. We explore several expectations and assumptions discussed in historical accounts of the environmental movement in Germany and in empirical studies on environmental attitudes and their determinants. Results show that the overall development can be divided into a period of rising environmental worries in the 1980s, a considerable decline in the 1990s, and a relative stability since 2000. From 2018 to 2019, however, a sizable upswing can be observed. Environmental worries are associated negatively with the unemployment rate and economic worries over time. In the 1980s and early 1990s, younger people were more worried than older people, but, in the meanwhile, this no longer holds. Education and (less so) income yielded significant differences in the 1980s and 1990s, but also these differences have faded away since 2000. Data confirm that environmental worries are shared more broadly in the population and that previously important group differences are increasingly leveling out.