Socioeconomic polarisation and green attitudes: evidence from ESS

This paper analyses the impact of income inequality on European citizens' attitudes towards the green transition, using data from Round 11 (2023) of the European Social Survey (ESS). Although there is extensive literature on the relationship between inequality and populist political attitudes, the same cannot be said when looking at the “green” orientation of the population. In particular, similar to the Kuznets curve, the relationship studied may take a non-linear form: in a non-polarised context, greater inequality should lead to a strengthening of environmentalist attitudes, while in a polarised context the sign of the relationship should be reversed. From a methodological point of view, the Gini index is calculated to measure inequality, while a binary logistic regression model is estimated to understand the probability of voting for green parties, considering not only polarisation but also individual socio-economic control variables. In addition, a Multilevel Linear Probability Model was used, which also allows for the impact of aggregate factors such as gross domestic product, population density and perceptions of environmental quality to be taken into account. The results show that higher levels of inequality are associated with a lower propensity to vote green. The study contributes to the literature by highlighting how socio-economic polarisation can influence environmental attitudes and support for ecological transition in Europe.