Perceptions of the supply and compensation of green jobs
In Step 5 (Figure 2), the survey explored participants’ perceptions of various barriers to participating in the green labour market. The areas of investigation included:
- Perceptions of the supply of green jobs. For example, how competitive they thought the green job would be and how easy or difficult it would be to find relevant job openings.
- Perceptions of the salary offered by green jobs.
- Knowledge of the green jobs’ skill and qualification requirements.
- Assessment of ability to undertake green jobs. For example, how suitable they thought they would be for the green job based on their skills and qualifications.
In this section, we summarise the results related to the first two areas of investigation, whereas Section 6 addresses the latter two areas.
Perceptions of the supply of green jobs
Men and women did not differ in how competitive they thought it would be to secure their green job, whether in STEM (M(Men) = 3.81, M(Women) = 3.83 [2], p = .570) or non-STEM fields (M(Men) = 3.75, M(Women) = 3.84, p = .053; average responses closest to “somewhat competitive”). Similarly, men and women did not differ in how easy or difficult they thought it would be to find an opening for their STEM job (M(Men) = 2.80, M(Women) = 2.74, p = .74; average responses closest to “neither distinctly difficult nor particularly easy”) or non-STEM green job (M(Men) = 2.49, M(Women) = 2.41, p = .177, average responses closest to “somewhat difficult”).
Furthermore, when assessing future availability of green jobs, both genders displayed similar expectations for STEM green jobs (M(Men) = 3.49, M(Women) = 3.40, p = .656, average responses between “unchanged availability” and “somewhat easier to find in the future than now”). For non-STEM green jobs, women (M = 3.55) were marginally more optimistic about future availability than men (M = 3.47, p = .033), with a stronger tendency to believe these jobs would be “somewhat easier to find in the future than now”. Finally, women perceived green jobs as significantly less available in their local area than men (Figure 6). Prior to answering this question, participants were asked to select their local area from a list, which aimed to mitigate diverse subjective interpretations of the term. However, this methodological feature might not have fully eliminated potential differences in how men and women conceptualise their local areas, which could affect their perceptions of green jobs’ availability.
Overall, STEM green jobs were seen as equally competitive (M = 3.82) as non-STEM green jobs (M = 3.80, p = .410), but openings for STEM green jobs were seen as easier to find (M = 2.78) than openings for non-STEM green jobs (M = 2.45, p < .001). Furthermore, STEM participants’ predictions of STEM green jobs’ future availability (M = 3.46) did not differ significantly from non-STEM participants’ predictions of non-STEM green jobs’ future availability (M = 3.51, p = .299). Finally, STEM participants perceived STEM green jobs as significantly more available in their region of residence (M = 2.76) than non-STEM participants perceived non-STEM green jobs (M = 2.44, p < .001). The differences in the perceived availability of STEM and non-STEM green jobs may stem from the surveyed STEM green jobs being more concrete and searchable compared to their non-STEM counterparts.
Figure 6: Men and women’s perceptions of regional availability of specific green jobs
Note. Five-point response options: 1 = “this job is completely unavailable in my region of residence”, 2 = “this job is only sporadically available in my region of residence and is thus hard to find”, 3 = “this job is available to some extent in my region of residence and can be found with some effort”, 4 = “this job is regularly available in my region of residence and is thus reasonably easy to find”, 5 = “this job is abundant in my region of residence and is thus very easy to find”.
Perceptions of the salary offered by green jobs
Men and women did not differ in how well they thought they would be paid in STEM (M(Men) = 3.74, M(Women) = 3.71, p = .858) and non-STEM green jobs (M(Men) = 3.39, M(Women) = 3.44, p = .255). Regardless of their gender, participants on average saw STEM jobs as “somewhat well paid” (M = 3.73) and non-STEM jobs as only “fairly paid” (M = 3.41, p < .001).
[2] M(Men) and M(Women) refer to the average responses of men and women to the five-point scale questions. In addition to these mean values, we always report p-values to indicate whether observed differences are statistically significant.
Dr Jelka Stojanov
