The Gender Gap in Carbon Footprints: Determinants and Implications | Ondine Berland

Ondine is a Fellow in Environmental Economics at the London School of Economics and an Affiliate Researcher at Grantham Research Institute. Ondine will be presenting the paper ‘The Gender Gap in Carbon Footprints: Determinants and Implications’.

Abstract

Understanding the distribution of carbon footprints across population groups is crucial for designing
fair and acceptable climate policies. Using granular consumption data from France, we quantify the
gender gap in carbon footprints related to food and transport and investigate its underlying drivers.
We show that women emit 26% less carbon than men in these two sectors, which together account
for half of the average individual carbon footprint. Socioeconomic factors, biological differences, and
gender differences in distances traveled explain part of the gap, but up to 38% remains unexplained.
Red meat and car — high-emission goods, often associated with male identity — account for most of
the residual, highlighting the role of gender differences in preferences in shaping disparities in carbon
footprints.

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