Cars and meat are major factors driving a gender gap in greenhouse gas emissions, new research suggests.
Men emit 26% more planet-heating pollution than women from transport and food, according to a preprint study of 15,000 people in France. The gap shrinks to 18% after controlling for socioeconomic factors such as income and education.
Eating red meat and driving cars explain almost all of the 6.5-9.5% difference in pollution that remains after also accounting for men eating more calories and travelling longer distances, the researchers said. They found no gender gap from flying.
“Our results suggest that traditional gender norms, particularly those linking masculinity with red meat consumption and car use, play a significant role in shaping individual carbon footprints,” said Ondine Berland, an economist at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a co-author of the study.
Research into gender gaps is often plagued by difficult decisions about which factors to control for, with seemingly independent variables often confounded by gendered differences. Men need to eat more calories than women, for instance, but they also eat disproportionately more than women. They also have higher average incomes, which is itself correlated with higher emissions.
Previous research from Sweden has found men’s spending on goods causes 16% more climate-heating emissions than women’s, despite the sums of money being very similar.
Marion Leroutier, an environmental economist at Crest-Ensae Paris and a co-author of the study, said: “I think it’s quite striking that the difference in carbon footprint in food and transport use in France between men and women is around the same as the difference we estimate for high-income people compared to lower-income people.”
The most powerful actions a person can take to cut their carbon pollution include getting rid of a petrol car, eating less meat and avoiding flights.
But efforts to challenge car culture and promote plant-based diets have provoked furious backlashes from pundits, who perceive it as an attack on masculinity. The term “soy boy” has been used by far-right figures including the US vice-president, JD Vance, and the self-described misogynist influencer Andrew Tate to present progressive men as weak.
Soy is a common protein source in vegan cuisine, but three-quarters of the world’s soya beans are fed to animals to produce meat and dairy.
The French researchers suggested the gender differences in emissions could explain why women tend to be more concerned about the climate crisis, arguing the greater personal cost of reducing their emissions could cause men to avoid grappling with the reality of the climate emergency.
But they added that greater climate concern could lead women to do more to cut their emissions. “More research is needed to understand whether these differences in carbon footprints are also partly due to women’s greater concern about climate change and their higher likelihood of adopting climate-friendly behaviours in daily life,” Leroutier said.
