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Understanding the key factors determining rural domestic waste treatment behavior in China: a meta-analysis

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Abstract

The growing interest of policy-makers, environmental stakeholders, and academics in rural domestic waste treatment has made it a recent focus of research in the field of rural human settlements. Many studies have been conducted to understand the related factors; however, their results are inconsistent. Therefore, different from previous studies, the study systematically analyzed and summarized empirical studies on rural domestic waste treatment and explored the key factors that fostered and impeded it. It also examined the reasons for differences in research level and trends in key factors over time. A random-effects meta-analysis of 24 studies revealed that education, political status, perceived value, behavioral attitude, subjective norm, garbage collection facilities and services, environmental knowledge and propaganda, and government policy and regulation had a significant positive correlation with rural domestic waste treatment; perceived value had the highest impact, followed by behavioral attitude. All of the variables had significant heterogeneity. Some of the heterogeneity can be explained by differences in research methods, sample size, and variable measurement methods. An increasing trend was observed in the effects of perceived value, behavioral attitude, and subjective norm. Finally, based on these results, the study provided suggestions on policy and academic aspects.

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Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Funding

The research was financially supported by the Shaanxi Provincial Social Science fund, grant numbers 2019D012. We appreciate all the participants for their cooperation and completion of the paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, 712100, Yangling, China

    Donghui Zheng, Jing Shen, Rong Li, Bei Jian, Jihong Zeng, Yongliang Mao, Xiaoning Zhang & Mei Qu

  2. Business School, University of Eastern Finland, 80101, Joensuu, Northern Europe, Finland

    Pradipta Halder

Authors
  1. Donghui Zheng
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  2. Jing Shen
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  3. Rong Li
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  6. Yongliang Mao
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  7. Xiaoning Zhang
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  8. Pradipta Halder
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  9. Mei Qu
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Contributions

Donghui Zheng: formal analysis and writing. Jing Shen, Rong Li, Bei Jian, Jihong Zeng, and Yongliang Mao: literature selection and data selection. Pradipta Halder: review and editing. Mei Qu and Xiaoning Zhang: conceptualization and supervision.

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Correspondence to Mei Qu.

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Zheng, D., Shen, J., Li, R. et al. Understanding the key factors determining rural domestic waste treatment behavior in China: a meta-analysis. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 11076–11090 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17999-x

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