Study On The Impact Of Environmental Pollution On The Behavioral Decision Of Residents

Environmental pollution has become a major obstacle in the process of China’s modernization,seriously restricting the sustainable development of China’s economy and society,resulting in great social losses,in addition,environmental pollution has seriously affected the daily life of the residents,reducing the health level of residents,hindering the improvement of happiness of residents.The impact of environmental pollution on all aspects of China’s macro-economic has been widely concerned,the academia have made a deep research on macro-economic problems such as economic growth and industrial structure change caused by environmental pollution,however,the ultimate goal of economic and social development is to allow people to live a happy life,and the happiness of the people can not be separated from the good living environment,from this perspective,the impact of environmental pollution on micro residents’ individual behavioral decision is also a question worthy of further study,it is of great significance to the sustainable development of China’s economy and society and the important goal of development achievements to benefit all the people.On the basis of existing research,this paper using the related data of China to analyze the status of environmental pollution on the urban level and residents’ three basic behavioral decision including residents’ migration decision-making,labor supply decision-making and environmental behavior decision-making.Using relevant theories for reference,the theoretical mechanism of environmental pollution affecting the behavioral decision of residents is deeply studied.Then,the main influence channels of three types of behavioral decision are analyzed,which are how environmental pollution affects resident migration decision,labor supply decision and environmental behavior decision.Subsequently,by utilize a number of domestic micro database and based on a variety of empirical methods,the impact of environmental pollution,especially air pollution,on migration decisions,labor supply decisions and environmental behavior decisions in different regions of China is empirically analyzed on the urban level.This paper also analyzes the differences between different groups and the variation of this effect under different constraint conditions.Finally,based on the theoretical and empirical results,relevant policy recommendations are put forward.The main conclusions are as follows:Firstly,through the analysis of the temporal and spatial evolution,current situation and characteristics of air pollution in various cities of China,it is found that,during the period of 1998~2009,the cities with substandard air quality all over the country showed an upward trend,from 2010~2012,it showed an upward trend,the polluted cities are mainly concentrated in North China,distributed in Henan,Shandong and Hebei provinces and adjacent areas,the urban agglomeration phenomenon of air pollution has been formed geographically.Using the 2015 AQI daily data released by the Ministry of environmental protection,it is further found that air pollution in our country is still severe,which has seriously affected the quality of life of some urban residents.Taking residents’ settlement decision,labor supply and environmental protection behavior as examples,this paper analyzes the characteristics of Chinese residents’ behavioral decision,results show that environmental pollution and different types of residents’ behavioral decision have obvious differences in different education level,income level,household property,social security and other conditions.Secondly,by matching the air quality index data with the dynamic monitoring data of the floating popluation at the urban level in China,we can discuss the influence of environmental pollution,especially air pollution on the settlement intention of floating population from a micro perspective,results showed that the higher the degree of environmental pollution,the greater the willingness of migrants to move out of the city where they are currently lived,this effect keep significant after controlling other family and personal characteristics and the characteristics of the city.Considering the family income constraints,high income groups have more means to avoid in the face of environmental pollution,can also reduce the adverse impact of environmental pollution,thus,the migration sensitivity to environmental pollution is lower than that of low-income groups,and this effect has the threshold effect of income,so the threshold effect of income may exist.After classifying the sample cities according to a certain standard,it is found that the impact of environmental pollution on population migration is particularly significant in small cities and type-I large cities,as well as in mega and super mega cities.When the existing housing property is purchased or self built,the impact of air quality on floating population migration is no longer significant.Thirdly,through the use of a panel tracking data from Chinese Household Income Project Survey mingled by urban residents with new immigrants sample,and use this data to verify the impact of environmental pollution on the labor supply of residents,the results show that the urban pollution level(measured by the residents’ city PM2.5)shows a significant negative correlation with the labor supply of the residents,and the elasticity is about 0.4.Sub regional sub sample analysis shows that the elasticity of environmental pollution to the labor supply of residents is greater in the central and Western regions,it may be due to the more serious pollution in the central and western regions.When the environmental pollution changes,the residents in the central and western regions feel more obvious,so the corresponding labor supply decisions also change more.The labor supply of non registered residents(nonlocal residents)and residents who hold agricultural hukou,is more affected by air pollution.The elasticity of labor supply to PM2.5 is greater than that of other corresponding groups,including 36~45 years old group residents,working years for 5~9 years group of residents,residents with higher education level,often outside the daily work of the residents and other groups.In addition,the area where labor protection law enforcement is more aggressive is usually better implemented at premium compensation for overtime,the extra income of working overtime is more secure,therefore,the effect of PM2.5 on labor supply is no longer statistically significant in the pursuit of higher overtime income without regard to environmental pollution.Fourthly,by using the 2013 Chinese General Social Survey data,empirical models verify the environmental pollution to some extent forced residents to enhance environmental awareness,in particular,the more residents can feel the water pollution level,the pollution degree of living waste and the lack of green space,the residents have a higher awareness of environmental protection.On this basis,using propensity score matching(PSM)method to overcome the problem of sample selection,this paper estimated the influence of environmental awareness of the residents travel mode,garbage,plastic bag recycling and maintenance of four green woods at their own expense behavior.The empirical results show that the promotion of environmental awareness of residents in China has not been able to increase all types of environmental protection behavior.Specifically,affected by the potential cost of environmental action,environmental awareness of residents have limited impact on travel mode choice,but has significant promoting effect on three environmental behaviors such as the garbage,plastic bag recycling and conservation of trees at their own expense.It reflects the different strategies of residents’ environmental protection behavior.Finally,based on the above conclusions and the current situation of environmental pollution in China,this paper put forward some concrete policy suggestions with respet to “Pay attention to the influence of environmental problems on Residents’ life behavior”,“Strengthen environmental governance to create a livable living environment for residents”,“Transfer local government’s environmental competition strategy environment from ‘ract to the bottom’ to ‘race to the top’” and “optimize the relevant conditions to reduce the negative impact of environmental factors on the lives of residents” and so forth.