Income inequality, organized labor, & ecological disempowerment: a cross-national assessment

Beliefs about an individual’s ability to influence environmental outcomes represent an important but understudied dimension of environmentalism in sociology and few comparative studies examine how broader economic structures shape these perceptions of environmental agency. We address these gaps by investigating the effects of income inequality, socio-economic status, and union membership on ecological disempowerment – the belief that individuals are unable to meaningfully address environmental problems. Drawing on data from three waves (2000, 2010, and 2020) of the International Social Survey Programme, we estimate multilevel models linking country-level inequality to respondent-level ecological disempowerment. The results show that higher country-level income inequality is associated with greater average feelings of ecological disempowerment. In contrast, respondent-level income, education, and union membership reduce feelings of disempowerment. More importantly, we find union membership strengthens the empowering effects of income and education and partially offsets the disempowering influence of inequality. Overall, this study highlights how economic inequality and collective institutions shape individuals’ perceived capacity to engage with environmental problems.