Postmaterialism and the Economic Condition

The postmaterialism concept developed by Ronald Inglehart has generated a considerable body of literature over the past couple of decades. One of the critical arguments concerning postmaterialism is that economic security or conditions at the early period of political maturation have a strong and long-lasting influence on postmaterialist attitudes later in life. Employing multivariate analysis, this paper tests the notion that early economic experiences have a lasting effect on postmaterialist values as measured by Inglehart. The data are collected from eight Western European nations over the 1973-84 period. These findings are supplemented with a recent survey of the European portion of the former Soviet Union. The results of this analysis suggest that early economic conditions do not actually affect how respondents rank Inglehart's postmaterialist items. Education and economic conditions at the time of the survey are much more important explanations for variations in the postmaterialist measure.