ATTITUDES AND ACTUAL BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF SUSTAINABLE CLOTHES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF FEMALE GENERATIONS IN SLOVAKIA

: Mainstream economics sees the solution to the problem of exploitative use of limited natural resources in a properly functioning price system. The price mechanism thus works on the principle of scarcity: if a natural resource becomes scarce, it is used less (higher demand causes an increase in the price of the resource). This argumentation is subject to the fulfilment of one condition: the price mechanism must work properly. The criticism of mainstream economics lies in the fact that the global market still offers producers locations with attractive input prices. This is how we achieve global economic growth but also an enormous increase in environmental problems. The clothing industry makes a significant global contribution to increasing the environmental burden. Enormous production is seconded here by customer demand. Specifically, fast fashion represents a constant cycle of buying and disposing of clothes, leading to a significant amount of textile waste. Consumers, with their decision-making power and choices, can be a part of a solution, but it is necessary to know their behaviour. The aim of the paper was to examine whether there exist differences among four female generational cohorts in Slovakia regarding their attitudes towards sustainable clothes and their real purchase behaviour. The questionnaire survey on the sample of n = 428 respondents was used as a method of data collection. One-way ANOVA was used to determine differences between all age groups. A Tukey post hoc test revealed that (1) Gen Y and Gen Z had significantly higher attitudes towards sustainable clothing in comparison with Baby Boomers and (2) Gen X and Gen Y expressed higher levels of purchases of sustainable clothes in comparison with both Baby Boomers and Gen Z. There were no significant differences in actual purchases of sustainable clothing between Gen X and Gen Y or between Baby Boomers and Gen Z. The oldest and youngest generations (Baby Boomers and Gen Z) do not differ among themselves but buy significantly less sustainable clothes in comparison with Gen X and Gen Y. Overall, all generations showed positive attitudes towards sustainable clothes, especially younger generations, but this was not fully reflected in their real purchase behaviour. Gen Z and Baby Boomers tend not to buy sustainable clothes, and Gen X and Gen Y are indifferent in this issue. This knowledge helps companies within the fashion industry concentrate on specific segments, tailor their communication strategies accordingly, target educational statements and adopt appropriate practices that are in line with consumer behaviour. To effectively tackle this matter, understanding diverse consumer groups can be highly advantageous, offering valuable insights into their behavioural patterns. It helps to distinguish practices that motivate female consumers to purchase sustainable clothes.


Introduction.
In recent decades, we have seen rising levels of consumer demand and consumption.Traditional business models struggling to meet growing consumer requirements and consequently the need to maximize profit have not had much regard for the finite nature of scarce resources.The textile industry is a typical example.The fast fashion business model constantly providing high-fashion designs and the latest styles, characterized by the mass production of clothes often of low quality at low prices, has become a threat to the environment and the future of mankind.It is one of the most resource-consuming and polluting industries (Niinimäki et al., 2020;Brydges, 2021).The production of clothes, footwear and home textiles has a negative footprint, causing water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and landfills.The facts are alarming.In 2015, 79 billion cubic metres of water was used by the global textile and clothing industry, and by 2030, it is even expected to increase by 50 percent.The production of one T-shirt consumes 2,700 litres of water, which is equivalent to one person's drinking water need for 2.5 years.An estimated 0.5 million tonnes of microfibres are released into the ocean each year by washing synthetics.The industry is responsible for 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (European Parliament, 2022).Every year, 92 million tons of textiles end up in landfills (Igini, 2023).Overconsumption of clothing and textiles, immensely boosted by globalization (Bly et al., 2015), has thus been observed as having harmful and irreversible environmental consequences (Papamichael et al., 2022;Pookulangara & Shephard 2013;Sheth et al., 2011).Numerous studies have already shown that consumers´ clothing purchase, consumption and disposal behaviours can be modified by better awareness of the negative social and environmental impacts of the textile industry (Yan et al., 2021).Ricci & Banterle (2020) also state that changes in consumer behaviour and individual consumers' awareness of the issues related to their day-to-day choices may be beneficial for the transition towards sustainability.A better understanding of consumers´ behaviour and their attitudes towards environmentally friendly products can also be useful for companies searching for sustainable business models (Kautish et al., 2019;Thogersen et al., 2015).However, there is still a lack of comprehensive research explaining consumers´ behaviour in sustainable clothing (Rausch & Kopplin, 2021).This paper aims to contribute to the body of knowledge in the field of consumer behaviour and sustainability.It provides insights regarding attitudes and actual purchasing behaviour towards sustainable clothing from the perspective of female generations by examining the existing differences between four female generational cohorts in Slovakia.
The paper is structured as follows.Section 1 presents a theoretical background concerning consumer behaviour in the context of sustainability and with respect to various generational cohorts.Section 2 presents the methodology and methods used, with details about the sample and procedures.Section 3 explains the main findings and results.Section 4 provides the conclusions, discussions, managerial implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for further research.
2. Literature Review.Sustainable consumption refers to the consumption of goods and services that minimizes negative environmental, societal and economic impacts.It involves making choices that take environmental protection and the long-term well-being of humanity into account, which is reflected in an effort to reduce waste and pollution, purchase eco-friendly goods and services and thus conserve natural resources.Although there is still a lack of integration in the research on sustainable consumption and there are many different definitions of the concept, some more similar findings can be found.The most accordant seems to be the inconsistency between what people say and what they actually do, referred to as the "attitudebehaviour", "intention-behaviour" or "values-action" gap (Bernardes et al., 2019;Young et al., 2009).Although in recent years there have been increasing efforts to raise consumer awareness of the need to protect the environment, many of them still exhibit this gap regarding sustainable consumption, and although they declare pro-environmental attitudes and intentions, these do not always translate into their actual actions (Rausch & Kopplin, 2021;Young et al., 2009).Manley et al. ( 2023) investigated consumers' perceptions of sustainable clothing and stated that Generation Z and Millennial consumers only vaguely understand what sustainable clothing is or how it is produced.Those two groups claimed that they are aware of the environmental and social impact of clothing consumption but frequently use nonspecific language such as "long-lasting, fair-labour or high-quality" to describe sustainable clothing.As several authors argue, consumption reinforces gender roles, and household consumption remains a gendered territory (Godin & Langlois, 2021), in which, in general, women show a higher degree of pro-environmental behaviour than men (Kennedy & Kmec, 2018).Some authors therefore advocate the need to consider gender in sustainability research and suggest focusing on women's attitudes and behaviour, as they significantly influence everyday household consumption behaviour (Godin & Langlois, 2021).The assumption that this is particularly true for clothing purchases was supported by O´Cass (2004) andParker et al. (2004), and it appears that women are much more involved with fashion than men.
If we want to explore attitudes and consumer purchasing behaviour, it is also useful to focus on intergenerational differences.Diversity between generations is now greater than ever before.Thus, understanding them has been playing an increasingly important role, and generational segmentation seems logical for business leaders and marketers (McCrindle & Wolfinger, 2009).The circumstances in which generations emerged have a significant influence on their development and characteristics.The main attributes related to the context, behaviour and consumption of each generation (Baby Boomers, generations X, Y and Z) are presented in Table 1.Sources: developed by the authors based on (Francis & Hoefel, 2018).
As the values and views of different generations evolve in different conditions and environments, the attitudes and actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes may also significantly vary across different female generation cohorts.Their study can bring some general observations and define the common characteristics typical of each generational cohort.Generation Y consumers are considered to be civic-minded, socially conscious, looking for high-quality goods and brands, and willing to pay more for sustainable offerings.The majority of them claim to be concerned about environmental issues, as they were born in an era of increasing calls for action in the field of environmental consciousness (Bernardes et al., 2019).This generation tends to purchase fashion products more often than other cohorts.In their clothing purchases, they (like Generation X) are impulsive in regard to shopping for clothes.Generation Y tends to visit retail malls more often than other cohorts, thus increasing their exposure to short-term marketing campaigns.As a result, they are more inclined to be responsive to marketing and merchandising efforts (Pentecost & Andrews, 2010).The good news is that consumers are increasingly demanding environmentally friendly products and services resulting from their growing interest in the movement towards a circular economy.Their awareness and environmental cooperation with them have become an essential driver for building a closed-loop supply chain in the textile and clothing industry on its path to sustainability (Siemieniuch et al., 2015).

Methodology and research methods.
The objective of the study was to examine whether there are differences among four generational cohorts of female clothing consumers in Slovakia regarding their attitudes towards sustainable clothing and their actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes.
The following hypotheses have been proposed: H1: There is a statistically significant difference between at least two generational cohorts related to their attitudes towards sustainable clothing; H2: There is a statistically significant difference between at least two generational cohorts related to their actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothing.
Data collection was performed on a nonprobability, convenience sample of Slovak female clothing consumers.Members of four generational cohorts participated in the study: Baby Boomers, born between 1945 and1964;Generation X, born between 1965 and1980;Generation Y, born between 1981 and1994;andGeneration Z, born between 1995 and2005.Researchers who organized the study initially recruited students attending marketing-related courses at two state universities in Slovakia to participate in the study.Those who were willing to assist in data collection, for appropriate course credit in return, further distributed the link to the questionnaire to members of other generational cohorts or personally interviewed members of other generational cohorts who agreed to participate in the study but were not used to using online questionnaire forms.Data collection was performed from January until August 2021.Due to pandemic measures in the aforementioned period, data collection was performed by means of a web-based questionnaire.In total, 428 respondents participated in the study.Nonprobability sampling represents one of the main drawbacks of the study, and future research should be performed on a more representative sample of Slovak clothing customers.
A web-based structured questionnaire was used for data collection.Questionnaire items were measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1-strongly disagree to 7-strongly agree.Attitudes related to sustainable clothing were measured with four items that were adapted from previous research related to sustainable consumer behaviour (Arvola et al., 2008;Pham et al., 2019).Respondents' task was to indicate the extent to which they agreed that the acquisition of eco-friendly clothes, or the acquisition of clothes in a sustainable way, such as upcycling of previously used clothes, buying second-hand clothes, renting instead of buying or the acquisition of clothes by swapping events, was practical, wise and the extent to which such modes of clothing acquisition would make them feel good and pleased.Actual buying of sustainable clothes was measured with four items borrowed from the work of Rausch & Kopplin (2020).To indicate their actual buying of sustainable clothes, respondents were asked to express their level of agreement with items implying exclusive purchases of sustainable clothes, buying sustainable instead of conventional clothing items if a design was comparable, buying sustainable instead of conventional clothing items even if the price was higher and paying attention to the sustainability of clothes in purchase occasions.
One-way ANOVA with Tukey's post hoc test was used to examine the effects of generational cohorts on attitudes towards sustainable clothing and actual purchases of sustainable clothing.Cronbach's alpha of a group of items related to attitudes was 0.869, and Cronbach's alpha of actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes was 0.899, which was above the level of 0.70, indicating internal consistency of the constructs.The mean values of a group of items related to attitudes and actual buying behaviour were calculated and entered into further analysis.SPSS v.17 was used for data processing.

Results.
Mean values related to attitudes and actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes, per generational cohort, are displayed in Table 2. Sources: developed by the authors based on SPSS output.
One-way ANOVA (F(3,424)=4.602,p=0.003) indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between at least two generational cohorts related to their attitudes towards sustainable clothing, which provided support for hypothesis H1.One-way ANOVA (F(3,424)=5.652,p=0.001) indicated a significant difference between at least two generational cohorts in regard to actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes, which provided support for hypothesis H2.The results of one-way ANOVA tests are displayed in Table 4. Sources: developed by the authors on SPSS output.
Tukey post hoc tests were performed to examine the differences between generational cohorts.The results of post hoc tests are displayed in Table 5.In regard to attitudes, a Tukey post hoc test revealed that Generation Y (M=5.77) had a significantly higher attitude towards sustainable clothing (p=.006) than Baby Boomers (M=5.28) and that Gen Z (M=5.74) had a significantly higher attitude towards sustainable clothing (p=.014) than Baby Boomers (M=5.28), which indicated more positive attitudes related to sustainable clothing among younger generations.
A Tukey post hoc test revealed that Generation X (M=3.98)significantly exceeded (p=.03)Baby Boomers (M=3.46) in actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes and Gen Y (M=4.07)significantly exceeded (p=.009)Baby Boomers in regard to actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes.According to Tukey post hoc tests, there were no significant differences in actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes between Gen X and Gen Y and Baby Boomers and Gen Z.However, Gen X (M=3.98)significantly exceeded (p=.042)Gen Z (M=3.48) in regard to actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes.Gen Y (M=4.07) also significantly exceeded (p=.014)Gen Z (M=3.48) in regard to actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes.The oldest and youngest generations (Baby Boomers and Gen Z) did not differ in regard to actual buying behaviour of sustainable clothes but indicated significantly fewer purchases of sustainable clothes in comparison with Gen X and Gen Y. Sources: developed by the authors. 130 We can also demonstrate the real preferences of female generational cohorts through descriptive statistics showing the answers to the question: Which one of the following options best describes your preferences in regard to the purchase of clothes?Here, "latest fashion trendsfast fashion" was the most preferred option for 50% of Gen Z respondents, and this number decreased with older generations.In the case of Baby Boomers, it was just 9%.

Conclusions.
The aim of our study was to determine whether there are differences in the attitudes and real buying behavior of female Slovak consumers, comparing four generational groups: Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z.Our research revealed that (1) Gen Y and Gen Z had significantly higher attitudes towards sustainable clothing in comparison with Baby Boomers and (2) that Gen X and Gen Y expressed higher levels of purchases of sustainable clothes in comparison with both Baby Boomers and Gen Z.The oldest and youngest generations do not differ among themselves but buy sustainable clothes significantly less in comparison with Gen X and Gen Y. Overall, all generations showed positive attitudes towards sustainable clothes, especially younger generations.However, this was not fully reflected in their real purchase behavior.Gen Z and Baby Boomers do not acquire sustainable clothes, and Gen X and Gen Y are indifferent in this issue.According to the results of one study (Hussain et al., 2020) regarding factors influencing consumers' green purchase behavior, consumers will engage in more green purchase behavior when they have more knowledge, information, and awareness of making the environment more eco-friendly and safer.The results allowed us to conclude that green advertisements and promotions should be implemented, due to which more consumers would move towards green consumption.When we compare these statements with our results, we could discuss if in our research positive attitudes were not fully translated into purchases because of the lack of the knowledge and awareness about sustainable, more ecological, or green options among female generational cohorts, and education would help in this case, or if there were also other reasons.
This study is subject to certain limitations that need to be addressed.First, the data collection was conducted using a convenience sample, which may raise concerns about its representativeness.Second, the study focused exclusively on Slovak female consumers, limiting the generalizability of the findings to the broader population and confining their applicability only to the Slovak context within this specific segment.Nevertheless, the study offers valuable insights into the attitudes and actual behavior of Slovak female consumers regarding clothing consumption and fashion.Given the relevance of females in the realm of fashion, their deliberate selection as the target demographic is justified.
However, further research should aim to provide a more comprehensive understanding by employing qualitative exploratory techniques, such as in-depth interviews, to delve into the underlying motives and reasons driving certain generations' behavior.It would be interesting to more thoroughly examine the determinants of Gen Z's attitudes and behavior, as this generation exhibited a high level of attitudes, which was not reflected in their actual purchases, and to determine the reasons for this discrepancy.Could the reason behind the lack of alignment between high levels of attitudes and actual purchases among certain generations, such as Gen Z, be attributed to the potentially higher cost associated with sustainable clothing consumption?For instance, this could involve the preference for slow fashion companies and local designers offering products of superior quality and durability, albeit at a higher price point.It is possible that the limited resources of this generation contribute to their hesitation in making such purchases.This is also in line with the findings of Olasiuk & Bhardwaj's (2019) study indicating high ambiguity in buying decisions among young ecobuyers, who are ready to consume more but find it difficult due to high price, poor quality and distribution models of eco-firms.They also claim that the problem of the low frequency of eco-shopping indicates that positive attitudes and purchase intentions correspond with environmental concerns; however, they are not manifested in more frequent purchase actions, which is similar to our findings.Alternatively, the negative perception of affordable second-hand clothes (as another option for "sustainable clothes") among young consumers might stem from their desire for acceptance among peers, as buying and wearing "low cost, poorer quality" clothes could potentially harm their self-image.When we focus on, e.g., the generation of Baby Boomers, it would also be interesting to determine why this generation is not as interested in the topic of sustainable clothing in comparison with younger generations and why they do not prefer to buy sustainable clothes.Again, the deeper investigation could answer the following questions and assumptions: One reason could be that they do not have enough options to buy sustainable clothes or there is a lack of information about alternative sustainable choices.Or is this generation simply behaving "naturally" sustainably since these women were born and raised in the political system in which there was a lack of choices, they were not used to spend much on fashion, they were used to tailor their clothes and clothes for their families and use the clothes until they are worn out?Therefore, maybe for this generation, sustainable clothing consumption is not even a topic since they still apply their old consumption patterns, not necessarily realizing that their behaviour is sustainable.
Additionally, as the presented results are part of a larger study encompassing four Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, the authors intend to analyse this behaviour from a cross-cultural perspective.Exploring other sociodemographic factors, such as income and education, included in the questionnaire could help determine their influence on this type of consumer behavior.Furthermore, conducting a similar study focusing on male consumers would be of interest to identify potential differences in comparison to female consumers.It is expected that men's involvement in clothes shopping is not as significant and influential for their self-image, which may yield intriguing findings.We also did not involve the emerging generation Alpha, which is forming its consumption habits and is receiving more attention from scientists (Nagy & Kolcsey, 2017).According to Raja et al. (2021), Generation Alpha (which was born after 2010) is expected to dominate the consumer market in the near future and will have better purchasing power than the other generational cohorts.To ensure that the coming generation will behave sustainably and to address its needs accordingly, it could also be very interesting to determine the level of awareness of this youngest generation of sustainability in clothing, where this generation prefers to buy clothes or which modes of clothing acquisition it is adopting (e.g., exchanging with friends, swapping events…), eventually what prevents this generation's sustainable choices.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Most preferred option for clothes purchase Sources: developed by the authors.

Table 1 .
Main characteristics of generations

Table 2 .
Mean values per generational cohort

Table 3 ,
indicated the fulfilment of the assumption of one-way ANOVA related to the homogeneity of variance between groups.

Table 3 .
Test of Homogeneity of Variances

Table 4 .
One-way ANOVA tests for attitudes and actual purchases of sustainable clothes

Table 5 .
Tukey post hoc tests Note: *The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level, a Generation.cohorts: 1 -Baby Boomers, 2 -Gen X, 3 -Gen Y, 4 -Gen Z Sources: compiled by the authors based on SPSS output.