Views of EU citizens on economic growth and implications for climate policy

Views of EU citizens on economic growth and implications for climate policy | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Views of EU citizens on economic growth and implications for climate policy Ivan Savin, Lewis King, Jeroen van den Bergh, Thijs Bouman, Milan Ščasný, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6592953/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Green growth, the idea that economic growth can continue while simultaneously reducing environmental harms, has emerged as a dominant sustainability paradigm over recent decades. Yet, growing scepticism about the viability of such strategies has driven interest in alternative ‘post-growth’ perspectives amongst experts and researchers. Public opinion acts as a crucial component in shaping climate policymaking, however it remains unclear what people think about the potential for post-growth strategies. To obtain an extensive, multi-country picture of economic growth views among the public, we surveyed 19,328 citizens across 13 EU countries. We find that there is a misalignment between the views of EU citizens and researchers – nearly 60% of citizens hold pro-growth views versus 14% among academics. Nevertheless, for both groups post-growth views are more prevalent in countries that are wealthier and have lower inequality. Pro-growth views align with a diverse set of values – self-direction, conservation, benevolence and universalism – suggesting a complex foundation rather than a straightforward conflict of pro-growth and pro-environment sentiments. Indeed, post-growth views show little association with climate concern or policy support, suggesting the prioritisation of economic growth should not be interpreted as being motivated by self-interest but rather as a means for achieving sustainability. Scientific community and society/Social sciences/Decision making Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change policy Scientific community and society/Social sciences/Interdisciplinary studies Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Main text A dominant paradigm has emerged in recent decades, green growth, suggesting that continued GDP growth remains desirable for society and absolute decoupling of its associated environmental impacts can be achieved in the future 1 . The feasibility and desirability of continued economic growth have come under increasing scrutiny in the context of climate change, leading to a competing discourse focusing on “post-growth” approaches 2,3 . Post-growth serves as an umbrella term 4 , encompassing several perspectives including “agrowth” and “degrowth”. Agrowth, representing growth agnosticism, argues that GDP growth should be ignored as it is irrelevant for measuring societal progress goal. Instead, the focus should be on environmental and social outcomes 5 . Degrowth advocates take a stronger position by arguing that growth is neither beneficial nor compatible with staying within planetary boundaries. It thus calls for a deliberate strategy of equitable reduction in material consumption and economic activity 6 . Research on post-growth strategies has gained considerable momentum in recent years, including both favourable and critical reviews of the literature on degrowth 7,8,9,10 . While these perspectives are sometimes dismissed as a fringe discourse 11 , concerns over the conflict between growth and climate targets are surprisingly widespread within the research community. A recent global survey of climate policy researchers revealed high levels of scepticism towards continued economic growth in high-income countries 12 . Among EU-based researchers, only 14% aligned with green growth, while 50% showed an agrowth perspective and 36% a degrowth perspective. Similarly, 77% of sustainability researchers in high-income countries support post-growth strategies 13 . Despite this widespread scepticism of green growth within the research community, there is limited evidence to suggest that these views have permeated broader public discourse. Economic growth continues to dominate political discussion and election debates while it is often key to citizens’ voting decisions. For instance, a poll conducted ahead of the 2024 US election identified the economy as the most important issue among voters – the only time it ranked higher was during the 2008 global financial crisis 14 . Nonetheless, post-growth perspectives are becoming more visible in policy discussions outside the academic literature with growth-critical and -agnostic discourses emerging among elected members of the European Parliament 15 . Survey studies suggest that public views on economic growth differ from those of climate policy researchers, with results varying based on question framing. Surveys asking respondents to exclusively choose between “degrowth”, “agrowth, “green growth” and “growth-at-all-costs” positions have been conducted for Spain in 2014 16 and Australia and the UK in 2023 17 . Green growth came out as the dominant group in both surveys, with similar distributions for degrowth (10–15%) and agrowth (~20%). However, the Spanish study had a considerably smaller growth-at-all costs group (4%) compared to the UK and Australia (20%). Other studies arrive at different categorisations of opinions. A 2016 Canadian survey identified three groups using Latent Class analysis (LCA) – “assured” (41.1%), “ambivalent” (36.3%), and “concerned” (22.6%) about economic growth in the context of sustainability 18 . A 2017 European-wide study found that 60.5% of respondents “support post-growth” when presented with a binary choice between prioritising environmental protection or economic growth 19 ; however, the binary nature of such a question can force people too much in a limited frame. These variations in findings underscore how survey design, including question wording and format, shapes public perceptions, making it difficult to compare attitudes across countries and over time 20 . Here, we present findings from a comprehensive survey of 19,328 citizens (16,781 after removing missing observations on questions we use) across 13 EU countries. Rather than using a dichotomous approach and directly asking respondents to choose between a trade-off between economic growth and the environment, we infer their positions based on responses to four key statements from the concise “Growth-vs-Environment Module” (GEM) survey instrument 21 . Our aim is to address four research questions: (1) What is the level of pro-growth support among EU citizens and how does this compare to the perspectives of climate policy researchers? (2) What national factors are associated with differences in growth opinions across countries? (3) How are socio-demographic factors, political views, and personal values associated with individual growth opinions? (4) How do individuals’ growth positions relate to their preferences for climate policy? Using LCA, we identify four distinct opinion clusters among citizens. Additionally, we construct an index to measure the intensity of growth support or scepticism (denoted as GS) and examine its correlation with national-level metrics. Through regression analysis, we then assess how both the opinion clusters and the GS index relate to sociodemographic characteristics, political views, values, and climate policy preferences. Results Analytical approach Detail of the four GEM survey statements is provided in Table 1. These statements – selected for their effectiveness in clustering citizens’ views from an original set of 16 survey statements designed to reveal diversity of views on many social and cultural issues 22 – assess perceptions of the importance of economic growth for environmental protection, life satisfaction, stability, and public services. This way, one goes beyond single-item questions on the growth-vs-environment debate used, for example, in the World Values Survey and can capture opinion clusters by using questions on many dimensions of the debate. Used in a survey of the general public in Spain as well as of researchers worldwide who published on the topic on growth-vs-environment 20 , this approach has previously identified agrowth as the dominant view. Comparing LCA outcomes for different information criteria indicated that a four-cluster solution was optimal (Supplementary Figure S1). The distribution of responses to the four GEM survey statements across these clusters are provided in Supplementary Figure S2. We assigned labels to reflect the growth position of each cluster based on our interpretation of the median responses to the GEM statements: “strong pro-growth” (25.1%), “moderate pro-growth” (34.7%), “agrowth” (32.1%), and “degrowth” (8.2%). This, therefore, represents two more general groups, “pro-growth” (with a strong and moderate version) and “post-growth” with degrowth representing a strong version of this and agrowth a moderate stance. The “Pro-growth” cluster responded “strongly agree”, while the “moderate pro-growth” cluster responded “agree” to all four statements. The “agrowth” cluster responded “somewhat agree” to the statement on stability and “neither agree nor disagree” to the other three statements. In contrast, the “degrowth” cluster responded with either “disagree” or “somewhat disagree”, depending on the statement. Table 1. Survey statements corresponding to the Growth-vs-Environment Module (GEM). Respondents were asked for their agreement with the statement from strongly disagree to strongly agree on a 7-point Likert scale. GEM statement Survey statement Environmental Protection Economic growth is necessary to finance environmental protection. Life Satisfaction Continued economic growth is essential for improving people’s life satisfaction. Public Services Economic growth is necessary to finance public health and pension systems. Stability Without economic growth, the economy will be less stable. Comparison of growth positions between European citizens and policy researchers The GEM survey instrument was previously used in a 2021 survey of 789 climate policy researchers, 209 of whom were based in the same 13 EU countries covered in the public survey at the time of the survey 10 . This provides a useful reference for comparing the views of European citizens and policy researchers. Panel A of Figure 1 presents a stylistic comparison of the distribution of responses from citizens and researchers to the consistent GEM statements used in both interviews on a 7-point scale Likert scale. While LCA identified an optimal number of three clusters among the policy researchers – corresponding neatly to green growth, agrowth, and degrowth positions – the clustering among citizens reveals a more nuanced picture, with strongly pro-growth and moderately pro-growth views emerging as separate groups. While the “green” aspect of green growth could be assumed in the context of climate policy researchers, citizens likely see the trade-off with environmental protection less clearly. For this reason, we frame the clusters for both surveys in terms of their attitudes towards the economic growth side of the growth-vs-environment debate. Panel B of Figure 1 compares the distributions of respondents across growth positions. European citizens exhibit considerably more pro-growth tendencies than climate policy researchers, with 60% aligning with pro-growth views compared to only 14% of researchers. Degrowth is more of a fringe position among the public, with only 8% aligning with it compared to 35% of academic researchers. While support for agrowth is also lower among citizens (32%) than among researchers (51%), it is considerably more widespread than degrowth. The substantial gap in openness to post-growth perspectives (agrowth and degrowth) between citizens (40%) and researchers (86%) is consistent with findings from previous studies for Australia, the United Kingdom and Spain 14,15 . Comparison of growth support across European countries Figure 2 shows the distribution of growth opinion clusters across the 13 EU countries included in our study. Spain exhibits the highest proportion of pro-growth views (strong and moderate pro-growth combined) at 69%, while Denmark has the lowest at 52%. In Denmark, as well as the Netherlands and Austria, almost half of the population support post-growth views (agrowth and degrowth) which contrasts with a majority position as suggested by another study of European citizens using a different survey approach 17 . Notably, Slovenia displays the highest proportion of degrowth views while ranking the fourth highest when ranked by pro-growth positions. Similarly, Germany exhibits relatively high proportions of strong pro-growth views despite being among the more post-growth-leaning countries overall. To facilitate statistical comparisons of growth views, we developed a “growth support” (GS) index, detailed in the Methods section. This index ranks respondents on a scale from -1 (strong degrowth) to +1 (strong pro-growth). Among the four clusters we identified, degrowth has an average GS value of -0.5, agrowth +0.13, moderate pro-growth +0.58 and strong pro-growth +0.89 (see Supplementary Table S6 for more details). Supplementary Figure S3 illustrates the overall GS distribution for the full sample of respondents, while Figure 3 shows the average GS values for each of the 13 countries alongside key country-level indicators for the most recent available year: GDP per capita, income inequality (Gini), Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), life satisfaction, CO 2 emissions per capita, and environmental policy stringency. A correlation matrix between national GS and these country-wide indicators is provided in Supplementary Figure S4. A clear pattern emerges with GDP per capita and income inequality: whereas higher GDP per capita is associated with lower growth support, greater income inequality (higher Gini) corresponds to higher growth support. Slovenia again appears as somewhat of an outlier to this pattern when looking at the two indicators separately, due to it having a relatively low GDP per capita yet the lowest income inequality among the 13 countries. However, when considering IHDI, which accounts for both income and inequality, Slovenia aligns closely with the broader trend of higher IHDI and lower Gini, corresponding to less growth support. Czechia is the only clear exception in terms of higher IHDI corresponding to less growth support. As illustrated in Supplementary Figure S4, among the national indicators, IHDI shows the strongest correlation with GS. This pattern of IHDI strongly predicting citizens’ attitudes towards economic growth is consistent with findings from the survey of climate policy researchers, which shows that those based in, or originating from, higher-IHDI countries were more likely to hold post-growth views 10 . Life satisfaction, reflecting citizens' subjective assessment of their wellbeing, also correlates with GS at a level similar to GDP per capita. Environmental policy stringency is negatively correlated with growth support, meaning countries with more stringent policies are more likely to hold post-growth views. In contrast, per capita greenhouse gas emissions show no correlation with growth support, suggesting that current emission levels play little role in shaping citizens’ growth views at the national level. Role of socio-demographics and political views To examine how growth views relate to socio-demographic characteristics and political views, we performed two regression analyses: (1) ordinary least squares (OLS) using the GS index and (2) a multinomial regression comparing opinion clusters relative to the “moderate pro-growth” position as the baseline (see the Methods section for details). Figure 4 presents the results, with further detail provided in Supplementary Table S1. Survey statements corresponding to the variables are detailed in Supplementary Table S2. Among socio-demographic factors, age exhibits the strongest relationship with pro-growth views. Older respondents were more likely to have pro-growth views, as reflected in both the GS index and the distribution across opinion clusters. While gender was not statistically significant in the OLS regression, the multinomial regression indicated strong pro-growth respondents were more likely to be male, whereas agrowth respondents were more likely to be female. Higher education levels, household income, and car use were all positively correlated with greater growth support, while urban residence and flight frequency showed no significant relationship. These findings suggest that pro-growth attitudes are not necessarily linked to carbon-intensive lifestyle choices. In terms of political views, right-leaning respondents exhibited stronger support for economic growth, a pattern that is reflected across the opinion clusters as both degrowth and agrowth were more left-leaning than the moderate pro-growth cluster. Additionally, trust in the EU government (more so than trust in national governments) and perceived climate action by politicians were both positively associated with pro-growth views. Put differently, people less trusting the policy makers are more likely to support alternative and more radical views on growth-vs-environment. Perceived climate policy knowledge also showed a slight positive correlation with growth support. Somewhat unexpectedly, personal climate concern showed no correlation with the GS index. However, the multinomial regression reveals that degrowth, agrowth but also strong pro-growth were more concerned about climate than moderate pro-growth. There is also no significant correlation between support for climate policies and the GS index, although the moderate pro-growth cluster showed more support than the others. These two findings suggest there is more nuance in citizens’ perceptions of economic growth than seeing it as a simple trade-off between competing economic and environmental priorities, as often framed in academic discourse and previous citizen surveys 14 , 17 . Role of human values The survey included a series of statements that correspond to the ten basic human values developed by Schwartz, as shown in Supplementary Table S3 23 . For two values subdivisions were made: “security” differentiated between personal and national security, recognising that both the role of individuals and states may shape citizens’ views on economic growth; and “universalism” covered by equality among people and respect for nature, both of which are relevant to the trade-offs associated with economic growth 4 . The ten values can be categorised into four higher-order motivational groups: conservation, openness to change, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence (see Table S3). Based on previous analysis of the survey results for Spain 16 , our initial hypothesis was that values linked to conservation and self-enhancement would be positively associated with pro-growth views, while those related to openness to change and self-transcendence would go in opposite direction. Panel A of Figure 5 shows the results of the OLS regression, and Panel B displays the multinomial regression outcomes. As expected, values related to “conservation” were positively associated with pro-growth views in both GS scores and opinion clusters. Among these, “national security” exhibited the strongest positive correlation, which may reflect the idea that economic growth facilitates the funding of expenditures on military defence or that those who favour growth want to maintain and protect the status quo. The two values under “openness to change” produced contrasting results. “Self-direction”, which was framed around independence and autonomous decision-making, showed the second-strongest positive correlation with pro-growth views, following national security. In contrast, “stimulation”, associated with adventure and risk-taking, was negatively associated with pro-growth views. This divergence between “self-direction” and “stimulation” suggests that support for economic growth is not merely a function of openness to change per se but of underlying values. Pro-growth supporters hold more the value of self-direction, which may reflect that they see economic prosperity as a means to do what one wants. Post-growth supporters' tendency towards stimulation reflects more openness to new perspectives and going against the status quo. All three values under “self-enhancement” – “achievement”, “power”, and “hedonism” – were positively associated with pro-growth views, aligning with our expectations. Individuals prioritising these values may perceive economic growth either as a reflection of societal success or as a means of personal advancement. Notably, the strong pro-growth cluster showed a positive association with “power”, which was framed around wealth accumulation. This finding is logical as people who endorse these values strongly care a lot about acquiring wealth and possessions, and that economic growth serves similar goals at the national level Arguably, the most unexpected findings emerged in the “self-transcendence” category. Here, “benevolence” and “equality” were both positively associated with pro-growth views, suggesting economic growth is not solely perceived as a pathway for personal gain but also as a means of achieving wider societal wellbeing. This may indicate that the public does not see economic growth as having limits in terms of achieving social progress, as argued in some of the post-growth literature 24,25 . Respect for nature was positively associated with the degrowth cluster and negatively associated with the agrowth cluster, suggesting that a distinguishing factor in those with degrowth views may be that they place stronger emphasis on the intrinsic value of nature than others. Climate policy preferences The survey also explored public support for various climate policy instruments proposed at the EU and national levels. These policies fall into two main categories: market-based instruments and direct regulation (mostly bans). The market-based instruments include the existing EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the proposed ETS for transport, buildings, and agriculture (ETS II); the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), an EU rail fund to subsidise rail fares, and taxes on fossil fuel profits, flights, and beef. Direct regulation includes mandatory (but subsidised for low-income households) insulation of residential buildings and bans on the sales of new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, intensive cattle farming, private jets, and advertising of carbon-intensive goods. Descriptions of how the policy instruments were framed in the survey are provided in Supplementary Table S4. Panel A of Figure 6 shows the results of the OLS regression, and Panel B displays the multinomial outcomes. Our findings indicate that opinions on the ETS and CBAM instruments have little relationship with the overall GS index. However, both degrowth and strong pro-growth positions tend to show less general support for the ETS, with respondents favouring degrowth also being less likely to support an additional ETS for transport. A clearer divide between the different views emerges with instruments related to taxation. Taxes on beef and flights show negative correlations with the GS index, indicating lower support among pro-growth respondents. In contrast, no significant relationship was found for a tax on fossil fuel taxes. This may indicate that while fossil fuel taxes show balanced support across growth views, those leaning towards post-growth perspectives may be more receptive to policies targeting high-carbon lifestyle choices. In contrast, a subsidised rail fund was more favoured by those with stronger pro-growth views. A clear divide also emerges regarding direct regulation. Agrowth and degrowth proponents show significantly higher support for prohibiting intensive cattle farming, ICE vehicles, and the advertising of carbon-intensive goods. However, the results of banning private jets are somewhat contradictory. Surprisingly, both degrowth and agrowth clusters show less support for this policy relative to the pro-growth cluster. In contrast, mandatory insulation, which combines direct regulation with targeted subsidies was positively associated with the GS index, with the degrowth cluster having particularly unfavourable opinions of this instrument. Overall, these findings align with those from the earlier survey of climate policy researchers showing that those supporting post-growth prefer direct regulation while pro-growth proponents like subsidies 10 . Discussion The findings from this survey of EU citizens suggests that a high level of scepticism towards economic growth observed among climate policy researchers 10 has not spread to the general public to the same extent. These findings are consistent with other surveys of citizens’ views on economic growth 14 , 15 . However, when comparing growth support across countries, a similar pattern emerges for both researchers and citizens: countries with higher GDP per capita and lower income inequality tend to show less support for economic growth and a shift towards agrowth and degrowth perspectives. This may represent that those in countries where high wealth has already been accumulated and distributed across the population see further economic growth as having less importance for achieving social and environmental goals. At the individual level, pro-growth views are positively associated with being male, older, and politically right-wing as well as having trust in politicians and confidence that they are sufficiently addressing climate action. Pro-growth supporters are more likely to be male and agrowth supporters - female. Interestingly, urban residence and flight frequency proxying carbon-intensive lifestyle choices are not associated with pro-growth attitudes. Arguably the most unexpected finding is little association between climate concern and overall growth support. The respondents in the moderate pro-growth cluster showed least climate concern but expressed the highest overall support for climate policies. These findings suggest that citizens’ views on economic growth are more nuanced than the simple trade-off between growth and environmental protection that often dominates academic discourse – as witnessed by previous surveys of public opinions 14 , 16 . Identifying basic human values associated with pro-growth views also produced some findings that go against the idea that citizens support economic growth primarily for self-interest. While pro-growth opinions correlated positively with self-enhancement, as anticipated, they also showed a positive correlation with two self-transcendence values: benevolence and equality. This suggests that citizens may prioritise economic growth as a means to achieve societal wellbeing, including self-transcending goals like reducing inequality. Future research could further disentangle these perspectives by independently examining the two key dimensions of the growth-versus-environment debate: whether continued economic growth is desirable and whether it is feasible within environmental limits? 26 In other words, to what extent are growth opinions shaped by the belief that economic expansion is essential for human wellbeing versus techno-optimism about decoupling growth from environmental harm? The findings have implications for climate policy as they provide insight into key factors underlying support for particular types of instruments. While pro-growth respondents did not systematically favour market-based instruments like ETS and CBAM, they showed strong support for subsidised rail fares and house insulation but low support for taxing carbon-intensive goods, suggesting a preference for direct public investment over carbon pricing mechanisms. Meanwhile, post-growth supporters – aligned with agrowth or degrowth – more strongly favoured bans on ICE vehicles and intensive cattle farming reflecting a preference for firm restrictions on high-carbon consumption. Degrowth adherents are also the least likely to support an additional ETS for transport. Altogether, our study reveals that opinions on economic growth and climate policy go beyond simple contrasts and cliches. The prioritisation of economic growth should not be interpreted as if people are self-interested and do not care about sustainability, but rather that they see this going hand in hand with each other. Politicians could learn from this what kind of framing for growth and climate policy is likely to garner public support for their party that is necessary to implement sufficiently stringent climate policy. Methods Survey design The survey was conducted within the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme “CAPABLE” project, data collection in the Czech Republic was performed within SEEPIA project. It was reviewed and approved by ETH Zurich’s Ethics Committee (EK- 2024-141). The survey was conducted between July and September 2024 and took a median of 22 minutes to complete. It comprised 19,328 completed responses covering 13 countries: Austria (n=1,594), Czechia (n=1,726), Denmark (n=1,591), France (n=1,219), Germany (n=1,591), Greece (n=1,596), Hungary (n=1,593), Italy (n=1,210), Netherlands (n=1,219), Poland (n=1,595), Slovenia (n=1,201), Spain (n=1,590), and Sweden (n=1,597). The collected data for each country is representative in terms of age, gender and education. The survey included four statements from the concise ‘Growth-vs-Environment’ Module 19 to categorise respondents based on their growth-versus-environment opinions. Respondents had to indicate their level of agreement using a Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree): (1) ‘Economic growth is necessary to finance environmental protection’ (Environmental protection), (2) ‘Continued economic growth is essential for improving people’s life satisfaction’ (Life satisfaction), (3) ‘Economic growth is necessary to finance public health and pension systems’ (Public services) and (4) ‘Without economic growth the economy will become less stable’ (Stability). These statements were taken from Drews et al. 18 who originally used 16 statements on distinct samples of the general public and international academic researchers, demonstrating that segmentation of respondents into distinct opinion clusters based on many dimensions of the growth debate is more accurate than asking people to choose one of the distinct views. Savin et al. 1 9 later showed that one can reduce the 16 statements to just 3–4 while maintaining high predictive accuracy. While the original GEM analysis suggested that different questions were optimal to use depending on whether the survey was aimed at academics or citizens, two statements were consistent across both groups: (1) “Economic growth is necessary to fund environmental protection” and (2) “Continued economic growth is essential to improve people’s life satisfaction”. Because participants had the option not to answer these questions, we lost 956 participants due to missing observations, which is less than 5% of our sample. Additionally, we losе 63 observations for survey respondent who chose other non-binary option and 1534 observations due to people wishing not to report their income. Thus, the sample used in regression analysis covers 16,781 observations. Our survey also contained a set of questions regarding support for various climate policy instruments such as the EU ETS, CBAM, ban of selling petro/diesel cars, as well as a set of questions on beliefs and values of the respondents and their socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, household size, income etc). GDP per capita PPP data were obtained from the World Bank 27 . Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index data were obtained from the United Nations Development Programme 28 . Gini coefficients and Life Satisfaction data were obtained from Eurostat 29 . Carbon dioxide emissions per capita data were obtained from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) database 30 . Environmental policy stringency (EPS) index was obtained from the OECD 31 . All data years are for 2022 except for the EPS index for which 2020 was the most recent data point. Clustering of respondents and devising a composite indicator of Growth Support We used Latent Class Analysis to segment our sample into four clusters (Figure S1 in Supplementary Information indicates four clusters as optimal), corresponding to strong and moderate pro-growth, agrowth and degrowth perspectives. As one can see from Supplementary Fig. S2, f strong pro-growth and degrowth take opposite views on the four statements, moderate pro-growth leans towards strong pro-growth, and agrowth is in between but typically tends to “somewhat agree” with the statements expressing preference for economic growth as shown in Figure 1. We derive a Growth Support index for each respondent to use in the regression analysis. To this end, we rescaled the four responses from the Likert scale ranging from 1 to 7 to an equally distanced scale between -1 and +1 (-1, -2/3, -1/3, 0, 1/3, 2/3, 1). Then we took an arithmetic average of these four rescaled responses resulting in an index in the range of -1 to +1 (see Figure S3). Regression analysis For the regression analysis, we employed ordinary least squares in case of Growth Support and multinomial regression models for the four clusters to study the association of growth positions with values/beliefs, socio-demographics, and climate policy preferences. In running the regression models, we simultaneously included these three groups of control variables on the right-hand side of the equation, while presenting results of those regressions in the main text in blocks. This has the advantage that we minimize the omitted variable bias. Undertaking Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) analysis indicates that there is no multicollinearity as all individual values are well below the conservative threshold of 5. Declarations Consent to participate was obtained References Bowen, A. & Hepburn, C. Green growth: an assessment. 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World Development Indicators Database (World Bank, 2025); https://data.worldbank.org/ Human Development Data (UNDP, 2025); https://hdr.undp.org/data-center Eurostat (European Commission, 2025); https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (European Commission, 2025); https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ OECD Environmental Policy Stringency Index (OECD, 2024); https://data-explorer.oecd.org/ Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files EUgrowthpositionsSI7.docx Supplementary Information Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6592953","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":465133608,"identity":"3b33b0fa-9d01-4ef8-b4ba-dd5c980b124f","order_by":0,"name":"Ivan Savin","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAApklEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACNhCRwGBDupY00i07TIJaPv7DzyQe7jgvJ99+9gDDxzZiHCaRZiaReOa2scGZvATGmcRpYTA2SGy7nbhBgseAmZcoLfzHPwO1nKufPwOo5S9RWhhyDB8kth1IYLgB1MJInMNyCoFakg03AP1ysOccEVrk+49vOPizzU4eGGIHH/woI0ILEuBhOECaBpCWUTAKRsEoGAVYAQCaYjKge1h2RgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9469-0510","institution":"ESCP Business School","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ivan","middleName":"","lastName":"Savin","suffix":""},{"id":465133609,"identity":"36fdf14c-57d7-48cf-8a16-4df83b33cbca","order_by":1,"name":"Lewis King","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6757-2503","institution":"Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Lewis","middleName":"","lastName":"King","suffix":""},{"id":465133610,"identity":"7c52ef34-f33a-42ad-a8c5-0ac8630369e2","order_by":2,"name":"Jeroen van den Bergh","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jeroen","middleName":"van den","lastName":"Bergh","suffix":""},{"id":465133611,"identity":"6117c774-510b-49de-ba47-f4b7fa79c114","order_by":3,"name":"Thijs Bouman","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7940-892X","institution":"University of Groningen","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Thijs","middleName":"","lastName":"Bouman","suffix":""},{"id":465133612,"identity":"971ff0b0-103b-436a-bd28-2b541f70f431","order_by":4,"name":"Milan Ščasný","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5040-1281","institution":"Charles University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Milan","middleName":"","lastName":"Ščasný","suffix":""},{"id":465133613,"identity":"a23716eb-5d03-40c5-9e5b-e31bf9de8f21","order_by":5,"name":"E Smith","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7702-0809","institution":"ETH Zurich","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"E","middleName":"","lastName":"Smith","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-05-05 09:20:40","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6592953/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6592953/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":84036618,"identity":"38f7bb43-2c0b-4a6c-b1a4-d8d697beeb1b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-06 04:16:09","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":131702,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrowth positions of EU citizens compared to climate policy researchers. (a) \u003c/strong\u003estylistic comparison of the distributions of respondents to expert and citizen surveys using two GEM statements on environmental protection and life satisfaction. Coloured boxes represent the interquartile ranges, and black lines represent the median survey responses of each cluster. \u003cstrong\u003e(b) \u003c/strong\u003eDistributions of growth positions from the present study for EU citizens (n=16,781) and from King et al. (2023) \u003csup\u003e10\u003c/sup\u003e for EU climate policy researchers, selecting for researchers resident in the 13 countries covered by the citizen survey (n=290). Labels of growth positions correspond to those with the same colours in Panel A.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6592953/v1/626bc040f8bd223b6650b6d5.png"},{"id":84036617,"identity":"f03e951c-2be5-49d8-a752-b4338cdc3a0a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-06 04:16:09","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":53413,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eComparison of growth position clusters across EU countries. \u003c/strong\u003eCountries are sorted by descending pro-growth views (sum of strong and moderate pro-growth).\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6592953/v1/85f59c2886f8b66af8a368f6.png"},{"id":84036621,"identity":"08488567-dc40-4a87-9ee3-88a9d919d281","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-06 04:16:09","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":318514,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eComparison of growth support (GS) across EU countries. (a) Comparison of growth support to national indicators related to wellbeing and the environment. Sources of data for the national indicators are provided in the Methods section. (b) Map illustrating the average value of the growth support for the countries included in the survey. Darker colours indicate higher values in both (a) and (b).\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6592953/v1/7b1c2dc646841ad736a81161.png"},{"id":84036615,"identity":"196515b3-0ca0-4f59-b830-e7b820d9d707","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-06 04:16:09","extension":"png","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":105229,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAssociations of growth views with socio-demographic characteristics and political views. (a) \u003c/strong\u003eCoefficient values of OLS regression with growth support \u003cstrong\u003e(b) \u003c/strong\u003eCoefficient values of multinomial regression with the moderate pro-growth cluster used as a baseline. In both cases, error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"4.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6592953/v1/03d885bc7b63f6b7f296fa1a.png"},{"id":84037163,"identity":"05f4a18c-7e6f-45b2-a65e-9ed0bf1bf446","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-06 04:24:09","extension":"png","order_by":5,"title":"Figure 5","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":84168,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAssociations of growth views with basic human values. (a) \u003c/strong\u003eCoefficient values of OLS regression with growth support \u003cstrong\u003e(b) \u003c/strong\u003eCoefficient values of multinomial regression with the moderate pro-growth cluster used as a baseline. In both cases, error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"5.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6592953/v1/588edeaed6a92f7d315255be.png"},{"id":84036629,"identity":"2737ff9b-fb5e-472f-80fe-047b8d7e35cc","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-06 04:16:09","extension":"png","order_by":6,"title":"Figure 6","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":95973,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAssociations of growth views with support for climate policies.\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e(a) \u003c/strong\u003eCoefficient values of OLS regression with growth support. \u003cstrong\u003e(b)\u003c/strong\u003e Coefficient values of multinomial regression with the moderate pro-growth cluster used as a baseline. In both cases error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"6.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6592953/v1/adc72b9c622ff005bf8af954.png"},{"id":84037400,"identity":"c06929aa-c0b5-4140-a16f-2d70289b2aae","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-06 04:32:10","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1403156,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6592953/v1/e3f8afd9-ab1e-430d-8d48-a7b5bad0480a.pdf"},{"id":84037162,"identity":"96ce4c69-6ae4-4b25-b5b8-638c7f9956da","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-06-06 04:24:09","extension":"docx","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":266101,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Supplementary Information","description":"","filename":"EUgrowthpositionsSI7.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6592953/v1/cb20a89178ed9960248175e5.docx"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"Views of EU citizens on economic growth and implications for climate policy","fulltext":[{"header":"Main text","content":"\u003cp\u003eA dominant paradigm has emerged in recent decades, green growth, suggesting that continued GDP growth remains desirable for society and absolute decoupling of its associated environmental impacts can be achieved in the future \u003csup\u003e1\u003c/sup\u003e. The feasibility and desirability of continued economic growth have come under increasing scrutiny in the context of climate change, leading to a competing discourse focusing on \u0026ldquo;post-growth\u0026rdquo; approaches \u003csup\u003e2,3\u003c/sup\u003e. Post-growth serves as an umbrella term \u003csup\u003e4\u003c/sup\u003e, encompassing several perspectives including \u0026ldquo;agrowth\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;degrowth\u0026rdquo;. Agrowth, representing growth agnosticism, argues that GDP growth should be ignored as it is irrelevant for measuring societal progress goal. Instead, the focus should be on environmental and social outcomes \u003csup\u003e5\u003c/sup\u003e. Degrowth advocates take a stronger position by arguing that growth is neither beneficial nor compatible with staying within planetary boundaries. It thus calls for a deliberate strategy of equitable reduction in material consumption and economic activity \u003csup\u003e6\u003c/sup\u003e.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eResearch on post-growth strategies has gained considerable momentum in recent years, including both favourable and critical reviews of the literature on degrowth \u003csup\u003e7,8,9,10\u003c/sup\u003e. While these perspectives are sometimes dismissed as a fringe discourse \u003csup\u003e11\u003c/sup\u003e, concerns over the conflict between growth and climate targets are surprisingly widespread within the research community. A recent global survey of climate policy researchers revealed high levels of scepticism towards continued economic growth in high-income countries \u003csup\u003e12\u003c/sup\u003e. Among EU-based researchers, only 14% aligned with green growth, while 50% showed an agrowth perspective and 36% a degrowth perspective. Similarly, 77% of sustainability researchers in high-income countries support post-growth strategies \u003csup\u003e13\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite this widespread scepticism of green growth within the research community, there is limited evidence to suggest that these views have permeated broader public discourse. Economic growth continues to dominate political discussion and election debates while it is often key to citizens\u0026rsquo; voting decisions. For instance, a poll conducted ahead of the 2024 US election identified the economy as the most important issue among voters \u0026ndash; the only time it ranked higher was during the 2008 global financial crisis \u003csup\u003e14\u003c/sup\u003e. Nonetheless, post-growth perspectives are becoming more visible in policy discussions outside the academic literature with growth-critical and -agnostic discourses emerging among elected members of the European Parliament \u003csup\u003e15\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSurvey studies suggest that public views on economic growth differ from those of climate policy researchers, with results varying based on question framing. Surveys asking respondents to exclusively choose between \u0026ldquo;degrowth\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;agrowth, \u0026ldquo;green growth\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;growth-at-all-costs\u0026rdquo; positions have been conducted for Spain in 2014 \u003csup\u003e16\u003c/sup\u003e and Australia and the UK in 2023 \u003csup\u003e17\u003c/sup\u003e. Green growth came out as the dominant group in both surveys, with similar distributions for degrowth (10\u0026ndash;15%) and agrowth (~20%). However, the Spanish study had a considerably smaller growth-at-all costs group (4%) compared to the UK and Australia (20%).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther studies arrive at different categorisations of opinions. A 2016 Canadian survey identified three groups using Latent Class analysis (LCA) \u0026ndash; \u0026ldquo;assured\u0026rdquo; (41.1%), \u0026ldquo;ambivalent\u0026rdquo; (36.3%), and \u0026ldquo;concerned\u0026rdquo; (22.6%) about economic growth in the context of sustainability \u003csup\u003e18\u003c/sup\u003e. A 2017 European-wide study found that 60.5% of respondents \u0026ldquo;support post-growth\u0026rdquo; when presented with a binary choice between prioritising environmental protection or economic growth \u003csup\u003e19\u003c/sup\u003e; however, the binary nature of such a question can force people too much in a limited frame. These variations in findings underscore how survey design, including question wording and format, shapes public perceptions, making it difficult to compare attitudes across countries and over time \u003csup\u003e20\u003c/sup\u003e.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere, we present findings from a comprehensive survey of 19,328 citizens (16,781 after removing missing observations on questions we use) across 13 EU countries. Rather than using a dichotomous approach and directly asking respondents to choose between a trade-off between economic growth and the environment, we infer their positions based on responses to four key statements from the concise \u0026ldquo;Growth-vs-Environment Module\u0026rdquo; (GEM) survey instrument \u003csup\u003e21\u003c/sup\u003e. Our aim is to address four research questions: (1) What is the level of pro-growth support among EU citizens and how does this compare to the perspectives of climate policy researchers? (2) What national factors are associated with differences in growth opinions across countries? (3) How are socio-demographic factors, political views, and personal values associated with individual growth opinions? (4) How do individuals\u0026rsquo; growth positions relate to their preferences for climate policy?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUsing LCA, we identify four distinct opinion clusters among citizens. Additionally, we construct an index to measure the intensity of growth support or scepticism (denoted as GS) and examine its correlation with national-level metrics. Through regression analysis, we then assess how both the opinion clusters and the GS index relate to sociodemographic characteristics, political views, values, and climate policy preferences.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"edn21\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003ch3\u003eAnalytical approach\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDetail of the four GEM survey statements is provided in Table 1. These statements \u0026ndash; selected for their effectiveness in clustering citizens\u0026rsquo; views from an original set of 16 survey statements designed to reveal diversity of views on many social and cultural issues \u003csup\u003e22\u003c/sup\u003e \u0026ndash; assess perceptions of the importance of economic growth for environmental protection, life satisfaction, stability, and public services. This way, one goes beyond single-item questions on the growth-vs-environment debate used, for example, in the World Values Survey and can capture opinion clusters by using questions on many dimensions of the debate. Used in a survey of the general public in Spain as well as of researchers worldwide who published on the topic on growth-vs-environment\u003csup\u003e20\u003c/sup\u003e, this approach has previously identified agrowth as the dominant view.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eComparing LCA outcomes for different information criteria indicated that a four-cluster solution was optimal (Supplementary Figure S1). The distribution of responses to the four GEM survey statements across these clusters are provided in Supplementary Figure S2. We assigned labels to reflect the growth position of each cluster based on our interpretation of the median responses to the GEM statements: \u0026ldquo;strong pro-growth\u0026rdquo; (25.1%), \u0026ldquo;moderate pro-growth\u0026rdquo; (34.7%), \u0026ldquo;agrowth\u0026rdquo; (32.1%), and \u0026ldquo;degrowth\u0026rdquo; (8.2%). This, therefore, represents two more general groups, \u0026ldquo;pro-growth\u0026rdquo; (with a strong and moderate version) and \u0026ldquo;post-growth\u0026rdquo; with degrowth representing a strong version of this and agrowth a moderate stance. The \u0026ldquo;Pro-growth\u0026rdquo; cluster responded \u0026ldquo;strongly agree\u0026rdquo;, while the \u0026ldquo;moderate pro-growth\u0026rdquo; cluster responded \u0026ldquo;agree\u0026rdquo; to all four statements. The \u0026ldquo;agrowth\u0026rdquo; cluster responded \u0026ldquo;somewhat agree\u0026rdquo; to the statement on stability and \u0026ldquo;neither agree nor disagree\u0026rdquo; to the other three statements. In contrast, the \u0026ldquo;degrowth\u0026rdquo; cluster responded with either \u0026ldquo;disagree\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;somewhat disagree\u0026rdquo;, depending on the statement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 1. Survey statements corresponding to the Growth-vs-Environment Module (GEM).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eRespondents were asked for their agreement with the statement from strongly disagree to strongly agree on a 7-point Likert scale.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"100%\" class=\"fr-table-selection-hover\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 26px;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGEM statement\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 60.5286%;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSurvey statement\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 26px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEnvironmental Protection\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 73px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEconomic growth is necessary to finance environmental protection.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 26px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLife Satisfaction\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 73px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eContinued economic growth is essential for improving people\u0026rsquo;s life satisfaction.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 26px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePublic Services\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 73px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEconomic growth is necessary to finance public health and pension systems.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 26px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eStability\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 73px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eWithout economic growth, the economy will be less stable.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eComparison of growth positions between European citizens and policy researchers\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe GEM survey instrument was previously used in a 2021 survey of 789 climate policy researchers, 209 of whom were based in the same 13 EU countries covered in the public survey at the time of the survey \u003csup\u003e10\u003c/sup\u003e. This provides a useful reference for comparing the views of European citizens and policy researchers. Panel A of Figure 1 presents a stylistic comparison of the distribution of responses from citizens and researchers to the consistent GEM statements used in both interviews on a 7-point scale Likert scale. While LCA identified an optimal number of three clusters among the policy researchers \u0026ndash; corresponding neatly to green growth, agrowth, and degrowth positions \u0026ndash; the clustering among citizens reveals a more nuanced picture, with strongly pro-growth and moderately pro-growth views emerging as separate groups. While the \u0026ldquo;green\u0026rdquo; aspect of green growth could be assumed in the context of climate policy researchers, citizens likely see the trade-off with environmental protection less clearly. For this reason, we frame the clusters for both surveys in terms of their attitudes towards the economic growth side of the growth-vs-environment debate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePanel B of Figure 1 compares the distributions of respondents across growth positions. European citizens exhibit considerably more pro-growth tendencies than climate policy researchers, with 60% aligning with pro-growth views compared to only 14% of researchers. Degrowth is more of a fringe position among the public, with only 8% aligning with it compared to 35% of academic researchers. While support for agrowth is also lower among citizens (32%) than among researchers (51%), it is considerably more widespread than degrowth. The substantial gap in openness to post-growth perspectives (agrowth and degrowth) between citizens (40%) and researchers (86%) is consistent with findings from previous studies for Australia, the United Kingdom and Spain \u003csup\u003e14,15\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eComparison of growth support across European countries\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFigure 2 shows the distribution of growth opinion clusters across the 13 EU countries included in our study. Spain exhibits the highest proportion of pro-growth views (strong and moderate pro-growth combined) at 69%, while Denmark has the lowest at 52%. In Denmark, as well as the Netherlands and Austria, almost half of the population support post-growth views (agrowth and degrowth) which contrasts with a majority position as suggested by another study of European citizens using a different survey approach \u003csup\u003e17\u003c/sup\u003e. Notably, Slovenia displays the highest proportion of degrowth views while ranking the fourth highest when ranked by pro-growth positions. Similarly, Germany exhibits relatively high proportions of strong pro-growth views despite being among the more post-growth-leaning countries overall.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo facilitate statistical comparisons of growth views, we developed a \u0026ldquo;growth support\u0026rdquo; (GS) index, detailed in the Methods section. This index ranks respondents on a scale from -1 (strong degrowth) to +1 (strong pro-growth). Among the four clusters we identified, degrowth has an average GS value of -0.5, agrowth +0.13, moderate pro-growth +0.58 and strong pro-growth +0.89 (see Supplementary Table S6 for more details). Supplementary Figure S3 illustrates the overall GS distribution for the full sample of respondents, while Figure 3 shows the average GS values for each of the 13 countries alongside key country-level indicators for the most recent available year: GDP per capita, income inequality (Gini), Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), life satisfaction, CO\u003csub\u003e2\u003c/sub\u003e emissions per capita, and environmental policy stringency. A correlation matrix between national GS and these country-wide indicators is provided in Supplementary Figure S4.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA clear pattern emerges with GDP per capita and income inequality: whereas higher GDP per capita is associated with lower growth support, greater income inequality (higher Gini) corresponds to higher growth support. Slovenia again appears as somewhat of an outlier to this pattern when looking at the two indicators separately, due to it having a relatively low GDP per capita yet the lowest income inequality among the 13 countries. However, when considering IHDI, which accounts for both income and inequality, Slovenia aligns closely with the broader trend of higher IHDI and lower Gini, corresponding to less growth support. Czechia is the only clear exception in terms of higher IHDI corresponding to less growth support. As illustrated in Supplementary Figure S4, among the national indicators, IHDI shows the strongest correlation with GS.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis pattern of IHDI strongly predicting citizens\u0026rsquo; attitudes towards economic growth is consistent with findings from the survey of climate policy researchers, which shows that those based in, or originating from, higher-IHDI countries were more likely to hold post-growth views \u003csup\u003e10\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003csup\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sup\u003eLife satisfaction, reflecting citizens\u0026apos; subjective assessment of their wellbeing, also correlates with GS at a level similar to GDP per capita. Environmental policy stringency is negatively correlated with growth support, meaning countries with more stringent policies are more likely to hold post-growth views. In contrast, per capita greenhouse gas emissions show no correlation with growth support, suggesting that current emission levels play little role in shaping citizens\u0026rsquo; growth views at the national level.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eRole of socio-demographics and political views\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo examine how growth views relate to socio-demographic characteristics and political views, we performed two regression analyses: (1) ordinary least squares (OLS) using the GS index and (2) a multinomial regression comparing opinion clusters relative to the \u0026ldquo;moderate pro-growth\u0026rdquo; position as the baseline (see the Methods section for details). Figure 4 presents the results, with further detail provided in Supplementary Table S1. Survey statements corresponding to the variables are detailed in Supplementary Table S2.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmong socio-demographic factors, age exhibits the strongest relationship with pro-growth views. Older respondents were more likely to have pro-growth views, as reflected in both the GS index and the distribution across opinion clusters. While gender was not statistically significant in the OLS regression, the multinomial regression indicated strong pro-growth respondents were more likely to be male, whereas agrowth respondents were more likely to be female. Higher education levels, household income, and car use were all positively correlated with greater growth support, while urban residence and flight frequency showed no significant relationship. These findings suggest that pro-growth attitudes are not necessarily linked to carbon-intensive lifestyle choices.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn terms of political views, right-leaning respondents exhibited stronger support for economic growth, a pattern that is reflected across the opinion clusters as both degrowth and agrowth were more left-leaning than the moderate pro-growth cluster. Additionally, trust in the EU government (more so than trust in national governments) and perceived climate action by politicians were both positively associated with pro-growth views. Put differently, people less trusting the policy makers are more likely to support alternative and more radical views on growth-vs-environment. Perceived climate policy knowledge also showed a slight positive correlation with growth support.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSomewhat unexpectedly, personal climate concern showed no correlation with the GS index. However, the multinomial regression reveals that degrowth, agrowth but also strong pro-growth were more concerned about climate than moderate pro-growth. There is also no significant correlation between support for climate policies and the GS index, although the moderate pro-growth cluster showed more support than the others. These two findings suggest there is more nuance in citizens\u0026rsquo; perceptions of economic growth than seeing it as a simple trade-off between competing economic and environmental priorities, as often framed in academic discourse and previous citizen surveys \u003csup\u003e14\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csup\u003e,\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csup\u003e17\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eRole of human values\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe survey included a series of statements that correspond to the ten basic human values developed by Schwartz, as shown in Supplementary Table S3 \u003csup\u003e23\u003c/sup\u003e. For two values subdivisions were made: \u0026ldquo;security\u0026rdquo; differentiated between personal and national security, recognising that both the role of individuals and states may shape citizens\u0026rsquo; views on economic growth; and \u0026ldquo;universalism\u0026rdquo; covered by equality among people and respect for nature, both of which are relevant to the trade-offs associated with economic growth \u003csup\u003e4\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ten values can be categorised into four higher-order motivational groups: conservation, openness to change, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence (see Table S3). Based on previous analysis of the survey results for Spain \u003csup\u003e16\u003c/sup\u003e, our initial hypothesis was that values linked to conservation and self-enhancement would be positively associated with pro-growth views, while those related to openness to change and self-transcendence would go in opposite direction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePanel A of Figure 5 shows the results of the OLS regression, and Panel B displays the multinomial regression outcomes. As expected, values related to \u0026ldquo;conservation\u0026rdquo; were positively associated with pro-growth views in both GS scores and opinion clusters. Among these, \u0026ldquo;national security\u0026rdquo; exhibited the strongest positive correlation, which may reflect the idea that economic growth facilitates the funding of expenditures on military defence or that those who favour growth want to maintain and protect the status quo.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two values under \u0026ldquo;openness to change\u0026rdquo; produced contrasting results. \u0026ldquo;Self-direction\u0026rdquo;, which was framed around independence and autonomous decision-making, showed the second-strongest positive correlation with pro-growth views, following national security. In contrast, \u0026ldquo;stimulation\u0026rdquo;, associated with adventure and risk-taking, was negatively associated with pro-growth views. This divergence between \u0026ldquo;self-direction\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;stimulation\u0026rdquo; suggests that support for economic growth is not merely a function of openness to change per se but of underlying values. Pro-growth supporters hold more the value of self-direction, which may reflect that they see economic prosperity as a means to do what one wants. Post-growth supporters\u0026apos; tendency towards stimulation reflects more openness to new perspectives and going against the status quo.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll three values under \u0026ldquo;self-enhancement\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; \u0026ldquo;achievement\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;power\u0026rdquo;, and \u0026ldquo;hedonism\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; were positively associated with pro-growth views, aligning with our expectations. Individuals prioritising these values may perceive economic growth either as a reflection of societal success or as a means of personal advancement. Notably, the strong pro-growth cluster showed a positive association with \u0026ldquo;power\u0026rdquo;, which was framed around wealth accumulation. This finding is logical as people who endorse these values strongly care a lot about acquiring wealth and possessions, and that economic growth serves similar goals at the national level\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArguably, the most unexpected findings emerged in the \u0026ldquo;self-transcendence\u0026rdquo; category. Here, \u0026ldquo;benevolence\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;equality\u0026rdquo; were both positively associated with pro-growth views, suggesting economic growth is not solely perceived as a pathway for personal gain but also as a means of achieving wider societal wellbeing. This may indicate that the public does not see economic growth as having limits in terms of achieving social progress, as argued in some of the post-growth literature \u003csup\u003e24,25\u003c/sup\u003e. Respect for nature was positively associated with the degrowth cluster and negatively associated with the agrowth cluster, suggesting that a distinguishing factor in those with degrowth views may be that they place stronger emphasis on the intrinsic value of nature than others.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eClimate policy preferences\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe survey also explored public support for various climate policy instruments proposed at the EU and national levels. These policies fall into two main categories: market-based instruments and direct regulation (mostly bans). The market-based instruments include the existing EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the proposed ETS for transport, buildings, and agriculture (ETS II); the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), an EU rail fund to subsidise rail fares, and taxes on fossil fuel profits, flights, and beef. Direct regulation includes mandatory (but subsidised for low-income households) insulation of residential buildings and bans on the sales of new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, intensive cattle farming, private jets, and advertising of carbon-intensive goods. Descriptions of how the policy instruments were framed in the survey are provided in Supplementary Table S4.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePanel A of Figure 6 shows the results of the OLS regression, and Panel B displays the multinomial outcomes. Our findings indicate that opinions on the ETS and CBAM instruments have little relationship with the overall GS index. However, both degrowth and strong pro-growth positions tend to show less general support for the ETS, with respondents favouring degrowth also being less likely to support an additional ETS for transport.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA clearer divide between the different views emerges with instruments related to taxation. Taxes on beef and flights show negative correlations with the GS index, indicating lower support among pro-growth respondents. In contrast, no significant relationship was found for a tax on fossil fuel taxes. This may indicate that while fossil fuel taxes show balanced support across growth views, those leaning towards post-growth perspectives may be more receptive to policies targeting high-carbon lifestyle choices. In contrast, a subsidised rail fund was more favoured by those with stronger pro-growth views.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA clear divide also emerges regarding direct regulation. Agrowth and degrowth proponents show significantly higher support for prohibiting intensive cattle farming, ICE vehicles, and the advertising of carbon-intensive goods. However, the results of banning private jets are somewhat contradictory. Surprisingly, both degrowth and agrowth clusters show less support for this policy relative to the pro-growth cluster. In contrast, mandatory insulation, which combines direct regulation with targeted subsidies was positively associated with the GS index, with the degrowth cluster having particularly unfavourable opinions of this instrument. Overall, these findings align with those from the earlier survey of climate policy researchers showing that those supporting post-growth prefer direct regulation while pro-growth proponents like subsidies\u003csup\u003e10\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe findings from this survey of EU citizens suggests that a high level of scepticism towards economic growth observed among climate policy researchers\u0026nbsp;\u003csup\u003e10\u003c/sup\u003e has not spread to the general public to the same extent. These findings are consistent with other surveys of citizens\u0026rsquo; views on economic growth\u0026nbsp;\u003csup\u003e14\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csup\u003e,\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csup\u003e15\u003c/sup\u003e. However, when comparing growth support across countries, a similar pattern emerges for both researchers and citizens: countries with higher GDP per capita and lower income inequality tend to show less support for economic growth and a shift towards agrowth and degrowth perspectives. This may represent that those in countries where high wealth has already been accumulated and distributed across the population see further economic growth as having less importance for achieving social and environmental goals.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the individual level, pro-growth views are positively associated with being male, older, and politically right-wing as well as having trust in politicians and confidence that they are sufficiently addressing climate action. Pro-growth supporters are more likely to be male and agrowth supporters - female. Interestingly, urban residence and flight frequency proxying carbon-intensive lifestyle choices are not associated with pro-growth attitudes. Arguably the most unexpected finding is little association between climate concern and overall growth support. The respondents in the moderate pro-growth cluster showed least climate concern but expressed the highest overall support for climate policies. These findings suggest that citizens\u0026rsquo; views on economic growth are more nuanced than the simple trade-off between growth and environmental protection that often dominates academic discourse \u0026ndash; as witnessed by previous surveys of public opinions\u0026nbsp;\u003csup\u003e14\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csup\u003e,\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csup\u003e16\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIdentifying basic human values associated with pro-growth views also produced some findings that go against the idea that citizens support economic growth primarily for self-interest. While pro-growth opinions correlated positively with self-enhancement, as anticipated, they also showed a positive correlation with two self-transcendence values: benevolence and equality. This suggests that citizens may prioritise economic growth as a means to achieve societal wellbeing, including self-transcending goals like reducing inequality. Future research could further disentangle these perspectives by independently examining the two key dimensions of the growth-versus-environment debate: whether continued economic growth is desirable and whether it is feasible within environmental limits? \u003csup\u003e26\u003c/sup\u003e In other words, to what extent are growth opinions shaped by the belief that economic expansion is essential for human wellbeing versus techno-optimism about decoupling growth from environmental harm?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe findings have implications for climate policy as they provide insight into key factors underlying support for particular types of instruments. While pro-growth respondents did not systematically favour market-based instruments like ETS and CBAM, they showed strong support for subsidised rail fares and house insulation but low support for taxing carbon-intensive goods, suggesting a preference for direct public investment over carbon pricing mechanisms. Meanwhile, post-growth supporters \u0026ndash; aligned with agrowth or degrowth \u0026ndash; more strongly favoured bans on ICE vehicles and intensive cattle farming reflecting a preference for firm restrictions on high-carbon consumption. Degrowth adherents are also the least likely to support an additional ETS for transport.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAltogether, our study reveals that opinions on economic growth and climate policy go beyond simple contrasts and cliches. The prioritisation of economic growth should not be interpreted as if people are self-interested and do not care about sustainability, but rather that they see this going hand in hand with each other. Politicians could learn from this what kind of framing for growth and climate policy is likely to garner public support for their party that is necessary to implement sufficiently stringent climate policy.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Methods","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSurvey design\u003c/strong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe survey was conducted within the European Union\u0026rsquo;s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme \u0026ldquo;CAPABLE\u0026rdquo; project, data collection in the Czech Republic was performed within SEEPIA project. It was reviewed and approved by ETH Zurich\u0026rsquo;s Ethics Committee (EK- 2024-141). The survey was conducted between July and September 2024 and took a median of 22 minutes to complete. It comprised 19,328 completed responses covering 13 countries: Austria (n=1,594), Czechia (n=1,726), Denmark (n=1,591), France (n=1,219), \u0026nbsp; Germany (n=1,591), Greece (n=1,596), \u0026nbsp; Hungary (n=1,593), \u0026nbsp;Italy (n=1,210), \u0026nbsp;Netherlands (n=1,219), \u0026nbsp;Poland (n=1,595), \u0026nbsp;Slovenia (n=1,201), Spain (n=1,590), and Sweden (n=1,597). The collected data for each country is representative in terms of age, gender and education.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe survey included four statements from the concise \u0026lsquo;Growth-vs-Environment\u0026rsquo; Module \u003csup\u003e19\u003c/sup\u003e to categorise respondents based on their growth-versus-environment opinions. Respondents had to indicate their level of agreement using a Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree): (1) \u0026lsquo;Economic growth is necessary to finance environmental protection\u0026rsquo; (Environmental protection), (2) \u0026lsquo;Continued economic growth is essential for improving people\u0026rsquo;s life satisfaction\u0026rsquo; (Life satisfaction), (3) \u0026lsquo;Economic growth is necessary to finance public health and pension systems\u0026rsquo; (Public services) and (4) \u0026lsquo;Without economic growth the economy will become less stable\u0026rsquo; (Stability). These statements were taken from Drews et al.\u003csup\u003e18\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csup\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/sup\u003ewho originally used 16 statements on distinct samples of the general public and international academic researchers, demonstrating that segmentation of respondents into distinct opinion clusters based on many dimensions of the growth debate is more accurate than asking people to choose one of the distinct views. Savin et al.\u003csup\u003e1\u003c/sup\u003e\u003csup\u003e9\u003c/sup\u003e later showed that one can reduce the 16 statements to just 3\u0026ndash;4 while maintaining high predictive accuracy.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the original GEM analysis suggested that different questions were optimal to use depending on whether the survey was aimed at academics or citizens, two statements were consistent across both groups: (1) \u0026ldquo;Economic growth is necessary to fund environmental protection\u0026rdquo; and (2) \u0026ldquo;Continued economic growth is essential to improve people\u0026rsquo;s life satisfaction\u0026rdquo;. Because participants had the option not to answer these questions, we lost 956 participants due to missing observations, which is less than 5% of our sample. Additionally, we losе 63 observations for survey respondent who chose other non-binary option and 1534 observations due to people wishing not to report their income. Thus, the sample used in regression analysis covers 16,781 observations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur survey also contained a set of questions regarding support for various climate policy instruments such as the EU ETS, CBAM, ban of selling petro/diesel cars, as well as a set of questions on beliefs and values of the respondents and their socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, household size, income etc).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGDP per capita PPP data were obtained from the World Bank \u003csup\u003e27\u003c/sup\u003e. Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index data were obtained from the United Nations Development Programme \u003csup\u003e28\u003c/sup\u003e. Gini coefficients and Life Satisfaction data were obtained from Eurostat \u003csup\u003e29\u003c/sup\u003e. Carbon dioxide emissions per capita data were obtained from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) database \u003csup\u003e30\u003c/sup\u003e. Environmental policy stringency (EPS) index was obtained from the OECD \u003csup\u003e31\u003c/sup\u003e. All data years are for 2022 except for the EPS index for which 2020 was the most recent data point.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eClustering of respondents and devising a composite indicator of Growth Support\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe used Latent Class Analysis to segment our sample into four clusters (Figure S1 in Supplementary Information indicates four clusters as optimal), corresponding to strong and moderate pro-growth, agrowth and degrowth perspectives. As one can see from Supplementary Fig. S2, f strong pro-growth and degrowth take opposite views on the four statements, moderate pro-growth leans towards strong pro-growth, and agrowth is in between but typically tends to \u0026ldquo;somewhat agree\u0026rdquo; with the statements expressing preference for economic growth as shown in Figure 1.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe derive a Growth Support index for each respondent to use in the regression analysis. To this end, we rescaled the four responses from the Likert scale ranging from 1 to 7 to an equally distanced scale between -1 and +1 (-1, -2/3, -1/3, 0, 1/3, 2/3, 1). Then we took an arithmetic average of these four rescaled responses resulting in an index in the range of -1 to +1 (see Figure S3).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eRegression analysis\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor the regression analysis, we employed ordinary least squares in case of Growth Support and multinomial regression models for the four clusters to study the association of growth positions with values/beliefs, socio-demographics, and climate policy preferences. In running the regression models, we simultaneously included these three groups of control variables on the right-hand side of the equation, while presenting results of those regressions in the main text in blocks. This has the advantage that we minimize the omitted variable bias. Undertaking Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) analysis indicates that there is no multicollinearity as all individual values are well below the conservative threshold of 5. \u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eConsent to participate was obtained\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBowen, A. \u0026amp; Hepburn, C. Green growth: an assessment. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 30, 407\u0026ndash;422 (2014).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJackson, T. Post Growth\u0026mdash;Life After Capitalism. Polity Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eVictor, P. A. Managing without Growth, Second Edition: Slower by Design, Not Disaster. (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKallis, G., Hickel, J., O\u0026rsquo;Neill, D. W., Jackson, T., Victor, P. A., Raworth, K., Schor, J. B., Steinberger, J. K., \u0026amp; \u0026Uuml;rge-Vorsatz, D. (2025). Post-growth: The science of wellbeing within planetary boundaries. The Lancet Planetary Health, 9(1), e62\u0026ndash;e78.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003evan den Bergh, J. C. J. M. Environment versus growth \u0026mdash; A criticism of \u0026ldquo;degrowth\u0026rdquo; and a plea for \u0026ldquo;a-growth.\u0026rdquo; Ecological Economics 70, 881\u0026ndash;890 (2011).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKallis, G. In defence of degrowth. Ecological Economics 70, 873\u0026ndash;880 (2011).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePolewsky, M., Hankammer, S., Kleer, R. \u0026amp; Antons, D. Degrowth vs. Green Growth. A computational review and interdisciplinary research agenda. Ecological Economics 217, 108067 (2024).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEngler, J.-O. et al. 15 years of degrowth research: A systematic review. Ecological Economics 218, 108101 (2024).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSavin, I. \u0026amp; van den Bergh, J. Reviewing studies of degrowth: Are claims matched by data, methods and policy analysis? Ecological Economics 226, 108324 (2024).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLauer, A., Capell\u0026aacute;n-P\u0026eacute;rez, I. \u0026amp; Wergles, N. A comparative review of de- and post-growth modeling studies. Ecological Economics 227, 108383 (2025).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSandbu, M. \u0026lsquo;Degrowth\u0026rsquo; starts to move in from Europe\u0026rsquo;s policy fringes. Financial Times (2023).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKing, L. C., Savin, I. \u0026amp; Drews, S. Shades of green growth scepticism among climate policy researchers. Nature Sustainability 6, 1316\u0026ndash;1320 (2023).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKoskim\u0026auml;ki, T. (2023). Targeting socioeconomic transformations to achieve global sustainability. Ecological Economics, 211, 107871.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBrenan, M. Economy most important issue to 2024 presidential vote. Gallup (2024).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKallis, G., Mastini, R. \u0026amp; Zografos, C. Perceptions of degrowth in the European Parliament. Nature Sustainability 7, 64\u0026ndash;72 (2023).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDrews, S. \u0026amp; van den Bergh, J. C. J. M. Public views on economic growth, the environment and prosperity: Results of a questionnaire survey. Global Environmental Change 39, 1\u0026ndash;14 (2016).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBell, C., Rhodes, E., Long, Z. \u0026amp; Salemi, C. Do economic trade-offs matter in climate policy support? Survey evidence from the United Kingdom and Australia. Energy Policy 197, 114430 (2025).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTomaselli, M. F., Sheppard, S. R. J., Kozak, R. \u0026amp; Gifford, R. What do Canadians think about economic growth, prosperity and the environment? Ecological Economics 161, 41\u0026ndash;49 (2019).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePaulson, L. \u0026amp; B\u0026uuml;chs, M. Public acceptance of post-growth: Factors and implications for post-growth strategy. Futures 143, 103020 (2022).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDrews, S., Antal, M. \u0026amp; van den Bergh, J. C. J. M. Challenges in Assessing Public Opinion on Economic Growth Versus Environment: Considering European and US Data. Ecological Economics 146, 265\u0026ndash;272.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSavin, I., Drews, S. \u0026amp; van den Bergh, J. GEM: a short \u0026lsquo;growth-vs-environment\u0026rsquo; module for survey research Ecological Economics 187, 107092 (2021).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDrews, S., Savin, I. \u0026amp; van den Bergh, J. C. J. M. Opinion clusters in academic and public debates on growth-vs-environment. Ecological Economics 157, 141\u0026ndash;155 (2019).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSchwartz, S. H. Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 1\u0026ndash;65 (Elsevier, 1992).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHirsch, F. (1976). Social limits to growth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eScitovsky, T. (1976). The joyless economy. New York: Oxford University Press.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMooij, R. A. D. \u0026amp; van den Bergh, J. C. J. M.. Growth and the Environment in Europe: A Guide to the Debate. Empirica 29, 79\u0026ndash;91. Which year??\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWorld Development Indicators Database (World Bank, 2025); https://data.worldbank.org/\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHuman Development Data (UNDP, 2025); https://hdr.undp.org/data-center\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEurostat (European Commission, 2025); https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEmissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (European Commission, 2025); https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOECD Environmental Policy Stringency Index (OECD, 2024); https://data-explorer.oecd.org/\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-portfolio","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Portfolio","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":false,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6592953/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6592953/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Green growth, the idea that economic growth can continue while simultaneously reducing environmental harms, has emerged as a dominant sustainability paradigm over recent decades. Yet, growing scepticism about the viability of such strategies has driven interest in alternative ‘post-growth’ perspectives amongst experts and researchers. Public opinion acts as a crucial component in shaping climate policymaking, however it remains unclear what people think about the potential for post-growth strategies. To obtain an extensive, multi-country picture of economic growth views among the public, we surveyed 19,328 citizens across 13 EU countries. We find that there is a misalignment between the views of EU citizens and researchers – nearly 60% of citizens hold pro-growth views versus 14% among academics. Nevertheless, for both groups post-growth views are more prevalent in countries that are wealthier and have lower inequality. Pro-growth views align with a diverse set of values – self-direction, conservation, benevolence and universalism – suggesting a complex foundation rather than a straightforward conflict of pro-growth and pro-environment sentiments. Indeed, post-growth views show little association with climate concern or policy support, suggesting the prioritisation of economic growth should not be interpreted as being motivated by self-interest but rather as a means for achieving sustainability.","manuscriptTitle":"Views of EU citizens on economic growth and implications for climate policy","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-06-06 04:16:04","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6592953/v1","editorialEvents":[],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-communications","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"NCOMMS","sideBox":"Learn more about [Nature Communications](http://www.nature.com/ncomms/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"https://mts-ncomms.nature.com/","title":"Nature Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"Nature Communications","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"4befa850-8a11-4f95-9d6f-ad85dda8ea15","owner":[],"postedDate":"June 6th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[{"id":49374642,"name":"Scientific community and society/Social sciences/Decision making"},{"id":49374643,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change policy"},{"id":49374644,"name":"Scientific community and society/Social sciences/Interdisciplinary studies"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-05-06T13:52:11+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-06-06 04:16:04","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-6592953","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-6592953","identity":"rs-6592953","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}