Gender and regional differences in risk perception: Results from implementing the seveso II directive in Sweden

This paper attempts to investigate whether there are gender and regional specific differences in risk perception in three municipalities in Sweden. It focuses on differences between gender and region with regard to risk perception, issues of trust and credibility as well as attitudes towards local industry and emergency response behaviour. This study is based on results from a larger study investigating the Seveso II Directive in Sweden. The aim of this paper is to investigate how gender and regional differences appear and in what way they should be taken into consideration when it comes to implementing national laws that deal with information to the public. The results show that there are differences between gender consistent with earlier findings, and also that there are regional differences which may influence the risk communication effort. Men tend to report having more knowledge of the industrial activities in their community and estimate the possible effect of an accident to be smaller than do women. Regional comparisons show that there are local variations with regard to estimated knowledge and the credibility of a source. Attempts are made to explain the gender differences from a power/infiuence perspective, and attribute the local variations to specific cultural contexts.