Climate change concerns and perceived intergenerational mobility

Research on climate change has examined risk perceptions, emotional distress, and support for mitigation policies, while research on perceived intergenerational mobility has focused primarily on economic and structural determinants of whether people feel better or worse off than their parents. Much less is known about whether climate-related concerns also shape these intergenerational self-assessments. Using original survey data from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden, this study investigates whether climate change concerns, measured through climate worry, daily-life impact, and reduced opportunity, are associated with perceived changes in social position relative to one’s parents. We distinguish between general life evaluations and perceptions of socioeconomic mobility. Results show that individuals who feel that climate change negatively affects their daily life or future opportunities are more likely to report being downwardly mobile, particularly when reflecting on their life more broadly rather than in strictly socioeconomic terms. These relationships are strongest in the United Kingdom and weakest in Sweden. We find limited evidence that the relationship between climate concerns and mobility perceptions differs systematically across birth cohorts, education, or gender. These findings contribute to emerging scholarship linking environmental disruption with subjective well-being, social identity, and perceptions of intergenerational fairness by showing that climate change matters not only for environmental attitudes and distress, but also for how individuals evaluate generational progress and decline in their own lives.