Does gender really matter when we are talking about energy saving attitudes and behaviours?

Abstract

Some studies indicate that women tend to be more pro-environmental than men, since they buy more green products, play a more active role in the separation of packages for recycling and display behaviour that is more favourable in regard to saving energy resources. With a specific focus on gender differences, this study aims to compare English and Portuguese students’ attitudes and behaviours in relation to energy saving. Three universities participated in this study, one from Portugal (PT) and two from the United Kingdom (UK), with data collected through a questionnaire. The results point to a number of significant differences in relation to gender between the respondents from the two countries, and some consistent trends in gender differences across the whole sample and the sub-samples from the different countries. The key trends identified overall are that female students are significantly more likely to express positive attitudes towards energy saving, and to undertake energy-saving behaviours. Differences between the sub-samples are relatively small compared to the similarities between them, suggesting that gender differences are reasonably consistent across the two countries.