A Comprehensive Test of the Green Parenthood Effect: The Influence of Parenthood on Attitudes and Concern for Climate Change

Protecting one’s child and ensuring that they have a good life is a fundamental concern for parents. Due to this inherent concern about the future well-being of their children, a widely held assumption is that parents should care more about future-generation-impacting societal problems such as climate change relative to non-parents. Research on this “green parenthood effect,” however, has returned decidedly mixed results. We add to and help clarify this literature by examining the potential direct and indirect effects of parenthood on pro-environmentalism across five studies (total N = 49,164). Utilizing both nationally representative data, as well as online surveys with more comprehensive measures, we find mixed evidence for this effect. Across studies, we do not find a significant and reliable association between parenthood and pro-environmentalism. Even when we examine a proposed explanatory mechanism of the green parenthood effect, concerns about one’s legacy, we find that although parents consistently score higher on legacy concerns, and even though activating parental identity increases concerns about one’s legacy, no impact on proenvironmentalism is observed. Ultimately, our studies find that there is little evidence for a ubiquitous and generalizable “green parenthood effect.” We consider possible avenues for engaging parents in climate change and potential future directions for this field of research.