The Effect of Demographic Variables on Consumers Environmental Knowledge and Environmental Friendly Behaviors

The modern world has increased the environmental pollution and problems and therefore has led consumers to become more concerned about the environment. Such concerns have begun to be displayed in their purchasing patterns and have led to a new segment of consumers called green consumers. Despite the evidence shows that environmental concern is on the rise among Iranian consumers, but not all the consumers are equally green. To be able to more effectively market green products, marketers need to segment green consumers and use differentiated marketing strategy for each target segment. Demographic variables have been widely used in the past researches for segmentation and profiling of green consumers. The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of various demographic variables on environmental knowledge and pro-environmental behaviors of consumers. Structural equation modeling was used for this purpose. Because all of the variables in the model were ordinal, Weighted Least Squares statistical method was used for structural equation modeling. The results of this study indicate that gender, income and age have significant effect on environmental knowledge and pro-environmental behavior of consumers. Also, findings of this study show that women and older consumers with mediate or low income are greener consumers.