Promoting Pro-Environmental Behaviors in Rural China: Does Happiness Play a Role

This study explores whether happiness can affect rural farmers’ pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs), measured by the number of pro-environmental actions taken. We employ a two-stage residue inclusion approach to analyze the data of 11,424 samples collected through the 2013 Chinese General Social Survey project. The empirical results show that happiness exerts a positive and statistically significant impact on farmers’ PEBs. Further, our mediation results show that the positive linkage between happiness and PEBs is partially mediated by environmental awareness. The disaggregated analyses indicate that the PEB effects of happiness are heterogeneous among farmers of different ages, between male and female households, and among those living in different regions. Nonetheless, the additional analysis demonstrates that happiness plays a larger role in promoting PEBs of rural farmers compared with their urban counterparts.