Vegetarianism and income

I am sure you wondered what makes that vegetarianism is more prevalent in some countries than others. I am glad to help you today.

Eimear Leahy, Seán Lyons and Richard Tol make a distinction between developing and developed economies. In developing ones, vegetarianism is mainly an issue of necessity, as meat is harder to come by. In developed ones, it is an increasingly popular lifestyle choice, which the authors interpret as an increasing awareness of the environmental impact of meat production. They come to this conclusion by combining household level survey data, to infer the number of vegetarians, in various countries and years with national level data. Interestingly, religion and in particular hinduism does not appear to be a factor.