Massachusetts (USA) – Demographic description

The citizens who participated in World Wide Views on Climate and Energy in Massachusetts (USA) were very close to the proportions of the general population of Massachusetts in gender, age, race and ethnicity, income level and urban-rural place of residence. The greatest discrepancy was in level of education. There were very few participants with less education (high school degree or less), while those with graduate and professional degrees were more than double the proportion of such people in the general population.

Members of environmental organizations may have been slightly over-represented in Massachusetts. Almost a quarter of the participants belonged to such organizations, compared to 18-20% of the general population in all of the USA. However, while we do not have separate data on environmental organization membership for Massachusetts, it is probably higher than in the entire USA, so it is possible that there is no discrepancy, and even that environmentalists were under-represented at the World Wide Views deliberation there.