Why are the Young more Postmaterialist?

Abstract

Research on aggregate generational changes in postmaterialist values indicates that cohort and life cycle effects are present, but does not identify precisely the causes of observed age differences. Using data from the 8-nation Political Action Study and macro-level indicators, this article examines the impact of both individual level and contextual factors on the relationship between year of birth and postmaterialism. Value change is found to be in the main accounted for by levels of education and severity of war-time experience—variables which have not usually been given a central role in Inglehart's theory, whereas the effects of several measures of formative affluence—a key element of the theory—are not significant. These results are taken to suggest that the postmaterialism scale does not measure post-“materialism,” but indexes instead values pertaining to progressive liberalism. It follows that the political consequences of value change are likely to differ somewhat from those proposed by the theory.