Money buys an SUV, while time fosters sufficiency? The influence of working hours, income and available time on high-impact unsustainable behaviour and pro-environmental behaviour

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that psychological motivational constructs (like environmental awareness) only predict overconsumptious unsustainable behaviour with particular high environmental impact (like mobility behaviour) to a small extent, whereas income is the most relevant predictor. It has been considered that working time reduction might be a promising strategy to counter this harmful income effect. The less people work, the less money they have to spend on unsustainable behaviour. Additionally, reduced working time might increase discretionary time, and might thus allow individuals to better align their actions on their (pro-environmental) values, leading to an increase in sufficiency-oriented behaviour. However, intra-individual empirical evidence of these assumed effects is sparse.