Individual and Country Level Determinants of (Post)Materialist Values in Eastern Europe

Abstract

This paper is aimed at analysing the level of postmaterialist values in East European countries as well as the main individual and country level predictors of the postmaterialist value preference. The data from the World Values Survey (WVS) and the European Values Survey (EVS), conducted on the nationally representative samples in the period from 1990 to 2008, were used. The main analysis was performed on the data from the fourth wave of EVS (2008/2010), on the total of twenty countries and 30,393 respondents. A number of individual (age, education, income level, size of town, economic hardship in formative years) as well as country level variables (inflation and unemployment rate, Human Development Index and GINI index values) were used. The results have shown that the level of postmaterialist values in Eastern Europe, measured by the standard four-item index, is relatively low and relatively stable in the period 1990–2008. Younger, urban and more educated respondents as well as the citizens from more developed and economically stable East European nations are more inclined towards postmaterialism. The significance of the current socio-economic conditions for the variation in postmaterialism as well as the insignificance of economic security during the formative period of political maturation calls into question the assumptions of Inglehart’s original model. The possible alternative mechanisms of value change as well as of the (post)materialist conception are discussed.