The environmental sustainability effects of income, labour force, and tourism development in OECD countries

Abstract

The impacts of the increasing human activities mostly through socio-economic and environment interactions have continued to generate more scientific studies and contemporary discussion on issues ranging from the climate change to income and gender gap. Accordingly, the current study employed the cointegration and a two-step (system) SYS-Generalized Method of Moments to examine the environmental sustainability effects of income, international tourism arrivals, and labour force vis-a-vis gender unemployment in the panel of (32) Organization for Economic Development and Corporation (OECD) for the period 1995-2016. The study revealed that income growth in the OECD countries and increase in the inflow of international tourists into the OECD member countries are significant endangering factors for the bloc's environmental sustainability. More striking is the environmental impact of labour force in the panel countries. Intuitively, a positive labour force-environmental degradation nexus is expected; the negatively desirable labour force-environmental degradation nexus in the current study is a justification of (1) the prevailing gender employment/unemployment classifications in the OECD member countries, and (2) the increasing adoption of more environmental friendlier working conditions or operation among the member countries. Moreover, the current study strongly posits a significant policy framework for the governments and stakeholders of the OECD member countries.