Assessing public support for degrowth: survey-based experimental and predictive studies

Degrowth argues that high-income economies should reduce harmful production and prioritise wellbeing. Although degrowth is increasingly seen as essential to tackling climate change, the extent of public support for this economic approach remains unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate public support for the full degrowth proposal in the UK and USA-high-income, growth-oriented nations with substantial climate responsibility and political resistance to degrowth. Our objectives were to distinguish support for the proposal itself from perceptions of the degrowth label and to examine the role of participants' individual differences.

Our objectives were examined in two studies, Study 1 and Study 2, administered online via Qualtrics. For both studies, participants in the USA and UK were recruited via Prolific (an online pool of participants) to be representative of the respective populations in age, gender, and ethnicity. Participants had to pass several attention and quality checks to qualify for analyses. Study 1 used a within-subjects design whereby all participants rated their support for the full degrowth proposal (summarising the key ideas, practices, and goals of degrowth) without any label and for eight economic approaches presented by label only (ie, degrowth, ecomodernism, ecosocialism, green capitalism, green growth, green market economy, post growth, and wellbeing economy) on a 7-point scale (from 1 [strongly oppose] to 7 [strongly support]). Study 2 used a between-subjects design whereby participants were randomly assigned using the randomiser function in Qualtrics, to one of seven economic approaches (the full degrowth proposal; a label referring to either degrowth, ecosocialism, or wellbeing economy without a description; or a combination of the full degrowth proposal with one of these three labels), for which they rated their support on the same 7-point scale. Mean support for each approach was classified on the basis of 95% CIs, meaning that similar means could be classified differently across studies and samples due to variations in these intervals. To identify key predictors of support, we also measured 74 individual differences, including various psychological and socioeconomic characteristics, and analysed them using an approach combining widely used machine learning models with multiple linear regression analyses; a variable was considered a key predictor only if it ranked among the most predictive in the machine learning models and was also statistically significant in the regression analyses.

Data were collected from study participants between Oct 10, 2023, and Dec 1, 2023. 6228 participants from the UK and USA were initially recruited, of whom 5454 were eligible for analyses. When presented without a label, in the UK, the full degrowth proposal received support from 736 (81%) of 910 participants in Study 1 and 210 (82%) of 255 in Study 2. In the USA, it received support from 683 (73%) of 941 participants in Study 1 and 187 (72%) of 260 in Study 2. On the 7-point scale, in Study 1, support was 5·37 in the UK and 5·07 in the USA (both corresponding to somewhat support), whereas, in Study 2, support was 5·34 in the UK (corresponding to somewhat support to support) and 4·97 in the USA (corresponding to somewhat support). When degrowth was presented as a label alone, it received support from 237 (26%) of 910 participants in Study 1 and 50 (20%) of 250 participants in Study 2 in the UK and 266 (28%) of 941 participants in Study 1 and 34 (13%) of 270 participants in Study 2 in the USA. In Study 2, the degrowth label accompanied by the full proposal was supported by 184 (74%) of 248 participants in the UK and 177 (68%) of 260 participants in the USA. In addition, 188 (75%) of 250 participants in the UK and 176 (67%) of 264 participants in the USA supported the full degrowth proposal plus ecosocialism label, and 209 (84%) of 250 participants in the UK and 179 (72%) of 249 participants in the USA supported the full degrowth proposal plus wellbeing economy label. Key individual difference predictors of support were people's drive to address global challenges and belief in ecosystem integrity.

Contrary to concerns from politicians and commentators that degrowth is broadly unpopular, the core degrowth proposal received substantial support from UK and US participants in this study, regardless of whether the full proposal was accompanied by the degrowth label. Therefore, negative perceptions of the degrowth label appear surmountable once people learn about the main principles behind degrowth. Fostering proactive engagement with global challenges and awareness of nature's fragility could further enhance the public's acceptance of degrowth.

London School of Economics and Political Science.