Do children matter? An examination of gender differences in environmental valuation

This paper is concerned with the role played by children in a household on choice behaviour related to willingness-to-pay (WTP) for environmental goods improvements. Data from a contingent valuation (CVM) survey dealing with three environmental improvements are used to examine three hypotheses. The first is that, after controlling for income, individuals with children have higher WTP than childless individuals. The second hypothesis is that women with children are willing to pay more for environmental improvements than men with children, particularly in the case where there is concern for environmental health risks. The third is that childless men and women exhibit significant differences in WTP that arise from greater time constraints faced by women. Estimated WTP functions are shown to be statistically different for four groups of individuals: women with children, men with children, women without children, and men without children. Parents of either gender are willing to pay more than their childless counterparts. Valuations of mothers and fathers are statistically different for only one of the three goods being evaluated. Interestingly, it is the fathers' mean valuations that are higher. This may arise from the fact that these environmental improvements lead to better recreational opportunities and, as indicated earlier, men are less time constrained. Further support for this view comes from results that show that valuations of childless men are significantly greater than those for childless women for two goods. The paper concludes with some directions for future research in the area. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.