Cross-National Analysis on Sensitivity to Environmental Quality and Its Change in East Asia

Abstract

This paper aims to compare people’s sensitivity to environmental change in China, Japan and South Korea across spatial and temporal dimensions by analysing the data derived from a cross-national survey. Based on the analytical results derived from 3907 samples, the consistency of people’s environmental sensitivity on the temporal dimension and the gap on the spatial dimension are clarified. The analysis on the temporal dimension indicates that people are inclined to hold a consistent evaluation toward environmental change, while the analysis on the spatial dimension of environmental sensitivity indicates that people are more sensitive to the deterioration of global rather than domestic environmental change. Data analysis also indicates that Japanese and South Koreans are pessimistic regarding the change of the environment while the Chinese are optimistic. In addition, the attributive features of individuals who are more sensitive to the environmental change are clarified within each country, and the results show that under different social backgrounds, the influence of demographic factors is somewhat dissimilar.