IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eoe/escoed/escoe-dp-2024-13.html

Working Towards an Environmentally Sustainable and Equitable Future? New Evidence on Green Jobs from Linked Administrative Data in the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Whittard, Damian
  • Bradley, Peter
  • Phan, Van
  • Ritchie, Felix

Abstract

Given the urgency to transition to net-zero, there is a need for a robust evidence-base to support an environmentally sustainable and equitable changeover. However, intelligence on green jobs and their impact on different groups is lacking. This study examines the dynamics of green jobs, leveraging a novel linked dataset that combines detailed occupational, industry, demographic and pay information from 2011 to 2018. By employing both cross-sectional and panel estimation techniques, we provide a wide-ranging analysis of employment in green occupations. The results indicate that individuals are more likely to work in green occupations if they are white, male, fulltime, not in a trade union and work for a small or foreign owned business. There is a pay premium for working in green occupations, which reduces gender and ethnic pay gaps. However, conditional on working in a green occupation, gender and ethnic pay gaps persist. This implies that to have a fair and just transition to net-zero, policy interventions are required to address the dual inequality of opportunity and pay.

Suggested Citation

  • Whittard, Damian & Bradley, Peter & Phan, Van & Ritchie, Felix, 2024. "Working Towards an Environmentally Sustainable and Equitable Future? New Evidence on Green Jobs from Linked Administrative Data in the UK," Discussion Papers escoe-dp-2024-13, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence.
    • Handle: RePEc:eoe:escoed:escoe-dp-2024-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.repository-escoe.com/id/eprint/51/1/ESCoE%20DP%202024-13.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bagheri, Mehdi & Guevara, Zeus & Alikarami, Mohammad & Kennedy, Christopher A. & Doluweera, Ganesh, 2018. "Green growth planning: A multi-factor energy input-output analysis of the Canadian economy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 708-720.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wei Yang & Junnian Song, 2019. "Depicting Flows of Embodied Water Pollutant Discharge within Production System: Case of an Undeveloped Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-15, July.
    2. Miao, Nana & Sharif, Arshian & Ozturk, Ilhan & Razzaq, Asif, 2023. "How do the exploitation of natural resources and fiscal policy affect green growth? Moderating role of ecological governance in G7 countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).
    3. Xin Yao & Yuanyuan Cheng & Li Zhou & Malin Song, 2022. "Green efficiency performance analysis of the logistics industry in China: based on a kind of machine learning methods," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 308(1), pages 727-752, January.
    4. Zahra, Samia & Fatima, Syeda Noreen, 2024. "Do energy diversification and green growth transition help to achieve the target of carbon neutrality? Testing the validity of the EKC hypothesis under the prism of green growth," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 373(C).
    5. Lin, Boqiang & Zhu, Junpeng, 2019. "Fiscal spending and green economic growth: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 264-271.
    6. Xiangyu Sun & Yanqiu Wang, 2025. "Inclusive Green Development in China’s Petroleum and Gas Industry: Regional Disparities and Diagnosis of Drivers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-24, September.
    7. Bagheri, Mehdi & Shirzadi, Navid & Bazdar, Elahe & Kennedy, Christopher A., 2018. "Optimal planning of hybrid renewable energy infrastructure for urban sustainability: Green Vancouver," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 254-264.
    8. Xiao Yu & Zhaoteng Zeng, 2024. "Impact of heterogeneous environmental regulation on total factor productivity: an empirical study based on China’s provincial data," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(7), pages 17813-17835, July.
    9. Lach, Łukasz, 2022. "Optimization based structural decomposition analysis as a tool for supporting environmental policymaking," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    10. Bin Xu & Lin Boqiang, 2023. "Investigating the Determinants of the Growth of the New Energy Industry: Using Quantile Regression Approach," The Energy Journal, , vol. 44(2), pages 241-258, March.
    11. Banacloche, Santacruz & Cadarso, Maria Angeles & Monsalve, Fabio & Lechon, Yolanda, 2020. "Assessment of the sustainability of Mexico green investments in the road to Paris," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    12. Trofymenko Olena & Ilyash Olha & Voitko Serhii & Dluhopolska Tetiana & Kozlovskyi Serhii & Hrynkevych Svitlana, 2022. "Impact of energy innovations on the Ukraine’s economy: Strategic direction and managerial practices," Economics, Paradigm, vol. 10(2), pages 27-44, December.
    13. João J. Ferreira & João M. Lopes & Sofia Gomes & Claudia Dias, 2025. "Diverging or converging to a green world? Impact of green growth measures on countries’ economic performance," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 27(12), pages 28763-28781, December.
    14. Zhuo, Chengfeng & Xie, Yuping & Mao, Yanhua & Chen, Pengqin & Li, Yiqiao, 2022. "Can cross-regional environmental protection promote urban green development: Zero-sum game or win-win choice?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    15. Lijing Zhang & Shuke Fu & Jiali Tian & Jiachao Peng, 2022. "A Review of Energy Industry Chain and Energy Supply Chain," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(23), pages 1-21, December.
    16. Wen, Le & Guang, Fengtao & Sharp, Basil, 2021. "Dynamics in Aotearoa New Zealand’s energy consumption between 2006/2007 and 2012/2013," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    17. Guevara, Zeus & Henriques, SofiaTeives & Sousa, Tânia, 2021. "Driving factors of differences in primary energy intensities of 14 European countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    18. Arathy Sudarsan & K. Chithra, 2025. "The role of energy management in transition towards green cities: a review," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 27(11), pages 26085-26107, November.
    19. C. Oliveira Henriques & S. Sousa, 2023. "A Review on Economic Input-Output Analysis in the Environmental Assessment of Electricity Generation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-26, March.
    20. Chuang Tu & Xianzhong Mu & Yufeng Wu & Yifan Gu & Guangwen Hu, 2022. "Heterogenous impacts of components in urban energy metabolism: evidences from gravity model," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(8), pages 10089-10117, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C10 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - General
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J49 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Other
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe
    • Q00 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eoe:escoed:escoe-dp-2024-13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Communications Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/escoeuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.