The Green Divide: How Occupational Risks Shape Policy Preferences and Voting Across European Countries

This paper investigates how occupational risks tied to asset stranding influence public opinion on climate policies and pro-environmental voting behavior across Europe. Asset stranding refers to the devaluation of carbon-intensive assets due to the green transition, which produces uneven socio-economic impacts. Workers in industries tied to stranded assets face heightened risks of job loss and financial instability, especially in households where multiple members are employed in these sectors. At the same time, wealthier regions and households with connections to green industries often adapt more effectively, exacerbating inequalities. Building on the methodology introduced by Vona et al. (2018), we develop a metric to classify occupations as “green” or “brown” across all EU countries using the ISCO-08 4-digit classification, to investigate the uneven effects of green transition between individuals but also across countries. Leveraging recent, comparative survey data on 31 countries (ESS11, 2024), we use information on respondents’ and family members’ occupations to construct an index of household-level risk, that accounts for the cumulative exposure to stranded assets within a household, hence higher vulnerability when multiple family members are employed in industries tied to stranded assets. Then we conduct a two-stage analysis. First, we explore how occupational risks affect the public’s environmental concerns. Second, we examine how these relate to voting behavior, looking in particular at support for pro-environmental parties, whether Greens or other parties with a green agenda. The study hypothesizes that individuals employed in carbon-intensive sectors, or living in households with higher exposure to stranded asset risks, will be less supportive of green policies and pro-environmental parties. Furthermore, we expect these dynamics to vary across countries based on structural factors. We hypothesize that Eastern European countries, heavily relying on carbon-intensive industries, and facing higher fiscal constraints compared to Western European countries, are less able to buffer the negative effects of occupational risks, hence face higher opposition to green policies. This research lays the groundwork for future studies and contributes to a deeper understanding of how pro-environmental attitudes are shaped by asset stranding risks and are mediated by structural inequalities, both within and across European countries.