Assessing Gender Bias in Climate Policy Interventions: Green Nudges and Commuting Choices

Abstract

Private transport is a leading contributor to climate change and local pollution in many countries. As a result, commuting choices have become paramount. Our main research question is how gender affects these choices. This paper analyzes the gender heterogeneity of informational interventions (green nudges) on the willingness of car commuters to adopt more sustainable commuting habits. To isolate causal evidence, we conducted a survey experiment with a randomly assigned informational treatment – a visual representation of the carbon footprint associated with different commuting options – among students at a university in northern Italy. The results show that the nudge increased the participants’ willingness to forego their private car by 7-9%. Heterogeneous analyses reveal a novel gender-specific pattern in nudge effectiveness: female car commuters exhibit a consistently greater reluctance to forego private vehicles in response to the treatment compared to male car commuters. Potential mechanisms include differing mobility patterns, security concerns, and lower social desirability bias among women. In all cases, this gender discrepancy documents the importance of integrating a gender perspective in climate policy interventions to enhance both effectiveness and public support.