Greening through schooling:Understanding the link between education and pro-environmental behavior in the Philippines

In recent years, changing lifestyle, consumption and mobility patterns have contributed to a global rise in greenhouse gases responsible for the warming of the planet. Despite its increasing relevance, there is a lack of understanding of factors influencing the environmental behavior of people from emerging economies. In this study, we focus on the role of formal education for pro-environmental behavior in the Philippines and study three potentially underlying mechanisms explaining the education effects: differential knowledge about climate change, risk perceptions, and awareness. Whilst there is some evidence showing that education is associated with pro-environmental behavior, little is known about the actual mechanisms through which it influences decision-making. Using propensity score methods, we find that an additional year of schooling significantly increases the probability of pro-environmental actions, e.g. planting trees, recycling, and proper waste management, by 3.3%. Further decomposing the education effects, it is found that education influences behavior mainly by increasing awareness about the anthropogenic causes of climate change, which may consequently affect the perception of self-efficacy in reducing human impacts on the environment. Knowledge and perceptions about climate risks also explain the education effect on pro-environmental behavior, but to a lesser extent

Moving along the Belt and Road: Implications of China’s “One Belt, One Road” strategies on Chinese migration

Along with the flows of China’s foreign direct investment following the newly implemented “One Belt, One Road” strategy by the Chinese government comes movement of state employees, entrepreneurs, workers and accompanying family members to respective countries along the Belt and Road. It is not clear how large the Chinese migration flows into these countries will be, who they will be comprised of, how the public reception of the host society will be and how well the migrants will be integrated in the destination country. Based on extant data and literature on current Chinese migration, this paper describes trends and patterns of recent Chinese migration in Africa and Asia, analyzes host country public perceptions on China, and investigates integration patterns of Chinese migrants. Given that the “One Belt, One Road” strategy was officially endorsed in 2015, it is still early to analyze its impacts on Chinese migration in the respective countries. Considering earlier Chinese overseas migration of the past decades, this paper presents potential migration and integration patterns one may expect following the Belt and Road initiative

Who is concerned about and takes action on climate change? Gender and education divides among Thais

Using data from Opinions about the Environment and Global Warming 2010, a nationally representative survey of 3900 adults, this study investigates demographic dierentials in levels of concern about climate change and climate-relevant behaviours. The factor analysis of 11 environmentally friendly and carbon emissions reduction behaviours identifies two main factors that underlie climate-relevant behaviours: (1) eorts to save electricity and water, and (2) technical and behavioural changes. The multivariate analyses show that women and individuals with higher education are more likely than others to worry a great deal about global warming, and to make technical and behavioural changes. It may be the case that education is positively correlated with making technical and behavioural changes, but not with making eorts to save electricity or water, because the former set of actions require more eort and knowledge to pursue, while the latter set of actions are commonly undertaken for economic reasons. Having concerns about global warming and having experienced environmental problems are also associated with an increased adoption of climate-relevant behaviours

Too few nutrients and too many calories: climate change and the double burden of malnutrition in Asia

About half of children age under five worldwide who are classified as undernourished (84 million out of 151 million) or overweight or obese (17.5 million out of 38 million) live in Asia. Tackling malnutrition in Asia is however fairly complex since the nutritional transition, a consequence of rapid economic development and globalisation, made many Asian nations undergo the simultaneous burdens of under- and over-nutrition. The dual burden of malnutrition is characterised by a concurrence of undernutrition along with overweight and obesity within the same individual, household, community, region and/or country. Providing that household food security is closely linked to malnutrition, this raises questions about the implications of climate change on the dual burden of malnutrition. That climate change affects food availability, access, utilisation and stability is evident. Accordingly, households facing food insecurity due to climatic shocks may allocate food differentially. Adult members may receive low-cost high-calorie food inducing obesity, whilst children receive nutrient-poor foods leading to undernutrition. Little is known about the climate impacts on the double burden of malnutrition and how this affects population subgroups differentially. This Editorial discusses the potential impacts of climate change on the double burden of malnutrition and concludes with the recommendation of strategies to tackle the issue

Potential Implications of China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ Strategies on Chinese International Migration

Along with the flows of China’s foreign direct investment following the newly implemented ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy by the Chinese government will likely generate movements of state employees, entrepreneurs, workers and accompanying family members to respective countries along the Belt and Road. It is not clear how large Chinese migration flows into these countries will be, who they are, how the public reception of the host society will be and how well the migrants will be integrated in the destination country. Based on extant data and literature on current Chinese migration, this paper describes trends and patterns of recent Chinese migration in Africa and Asia, analyses host country public perceptions on China and investigates integration patterns of Chinese migrants. Given that the ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy has only been officially endorsed in 2015, it is still early to analyse its impacts on Chinese migration in the respective countries. Considering earlier Chinese overseas migration in the past decades, this paper presents potential migration and integration patterns one may expect following the Belt and Road initiative

Climate change and seasonal floods: potential long-term nutritional consequences for children in Kerala, India

none2siIn the aftermath of the worst flooding Kerala has experienced in nearly a century, we highlight the urgency of considering the long-term health consequences of floods, especially on young children. Based on the recent Demographic and Health Survey data for India in 2015–2016, we provided evidence showing that abnormally wet conditions increased the likelihood of undernutrition for children aged under 5 as measured by stunting and wasting. Experiencing floods during infancy, being a girs with illiterate mothers making a child particularly vulnerable to being stunted while living in the rural area increases the risk of being wasted due to floods. We put forward that nutritional and water and sanitation interventions at the critical period of flood exposure can reverse the course of undernutrition which in turn can reduce the cost of poor human development in the long run.openMuttarak R; Dimitrova AMuttarak R; Dimitrova

Forecasting societies' adaptive capacities through a demographic metabolism model

In seeking to understand how future societies will be affected by climate change we cannot simply assume they will be identical to those of today, because climate and societies are both dynamic. Here we propose that the concept of demographic metabolism and the associated methods of multi-dimensional population projections provide an effective analytical toolbox to forecast important aspects of societal change that affect adaptive capacity. We present an example of how the changing educational composition of future populations can influence societies' adaptive capacity. Multi-dimensional population projections form the human core of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios, and knowledge and analytical tools from demography have great value in assessing the likely implications of climate change on future human well-being

A tale of disaster experience in two countries: Does education promote disaster preparedness in the Philippines and Thailand

Preparing for a disaster can substantially minimize loss and damages from natural hazards. Amongst other socio-demographic determinants, disaster experience and education are found to be key predictors of individual disaster preparedness. This paper explores the pathways through which education enhances disaster preparedness and the interplay between education and experience in shaping preparedness behaviours. Data analysis is based on face-to-face interviews in two disaster-prone countries: the Philippines and Thailand. While education raises the propensity to prepare against disasters, we further find that the effect of education on disaster preparedness is mainly mediated through social capital and disaster risk perception in Thailand but there is no evidence that education is mediated through other observable channels in the Philippines. This in turn suggests that the underlying mechanisms explaining the education effects are highly context-specific. Furthermore, we show that education raises disaster preparedness only for the households that have not been affected by a disaster in the past. One explanation could be that education improves abstract reasoning and anticipation skills such that the better educated undertake preventive measures without needing to first experience the harmful event and then learn later