Coming Apart? Cultural Distances in the United States over Time

Abstract

We analyze trends in cultural distances between groups in the United States defined by income, education, gender, race, and political ideology. We measure cultural distance as the ability to infer an individual's group based on media diet, consumer behavior, time use, social attitudes, or newborn's name. Gender difference in time-use decreased between 1965 and 1995 and has remained constant since. Differences in social attitudes by political ideology, and somewhat by income, have increased over the last four decades. Whites and non-Whites have diverged in consumer behavior. For all other demographic divisions and cultural dimensions, cultural distance has been broadly constant over time. (JEL D12, D91, J15, J16, L82, Z13)