Children of a Common Mother: Determinants of Social Liberalism in the United States and Canada

Using panel data from the World Values Surveys, this article develops an index of social liberalism to see whether Canada and the United States have been moving on parallel tracks in their values or whether they have been inching closer to value convergence over time. In addition, we explore the determinants of social liberalism in both countries. Tracking of the six-item index of social liberalism shows that there is a trend in value change in the United States and Canada over twenty years' span: Both nations are becoming more liberal as well as moving slightly closer in values. Multivariate analyses of the determinants of social liberalism lead us to conclude that the most important determinant of social liberalism is religiosity, not the countries or the regions, as suggested by previous research.