postmaterialism, value orientation that emphasizes self-expression and quality of life over economic and physical security. The term postmaterialism was first coined by American social scientist Ronald Inglehart in The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics (1977).
Until the 1970s, it was nearly universal for individuals to prioritize so-called materialist values such as economic growth and maintaining order; on the other hand, postmaterialists give top priority to such goals as environmental protection, freedom of speech, and gender equality. The shift, particularly among citizens living in Western countries, reflected a change from an environment in which one was aware that survival was precarious to a post-World War II world where most felt that survival could be taken for granted. Age cohorts born after World War II in advanced industrial societies spent their formative years under levels of prosperity that were unprecedented in human history, and the welfare state reinforced the feeling that survival was secure, producing an intergenerational value change that has gradually transformed the political and cultural norms of these societies. Survey evidenced gathered in the United States, western Europe, and Japan since the 1970s has demonstrated that an intergenerational shift has made central new political issues and provided the impetus for new political movements.
This theory of intergenerational value change has two key hypotheses: (1) that an individual’s priorities reflect the socioeconomic environment, with individuals placing the greatest subjective value on those things that are in relatively short supply, and (2) that the relationship between socioeconomic environment and value priorities involves a substantial time lag because one’s basic values reflect the conditions that prevailed during one’s preadult years.
Consequently, after a period of sharply rising economic and physical security, one would expect to find substantial differences between the value priorities of older and younger groups, as they would have been shaped by different experiences in their formative years. Researchers have found that more recently born age cohorts tend to emphasize postmaterialist goals to a far greater extent than older cohorts, seemingly reflecting generational change rather than simple aging effects. In the early 1970s, materialists held an overwhelming numerical preponderance over postmaterialists in Western countries, outnumbering them nearly four to one. By the turn of the 21st century, however, materialists and postmaterialists had become equally numerous in many Western countries. The ratio varies considerably according to the given country’s level of existential security, with impoverished and strife-torn countries having a preponderance of materialists and prosperous and secure ones having a preponderance of postmaterialists. For example, at the turn of the 21st century, materialists outnumbered postmaterialists in Pakistan by more than 50 to 1 and in Russia by nearly 30 to 1. But, in prosperous and stable countries such as the United States and Sweden, postmaterialists outnumbered materialists by 2 to 1 and 5 to 1, respectively.
Postmaterialism itself is only one aspect of a still broader process of cultural change that has reshaped the political outlook, religious orientations, gender roles, and sexual mores of advanced industrial society. Postmodern orientations place less emphasis on traditional cultural norms, especially those that limit individual self-expression. A major component of the postmodern shift is a move away from both religious and bureaucratic authority, bringing declining emphasis on all kinds of authority. Deference to authority has high costs, as individuals must subordinate their personal goals to those of a broader entity; under conditions of insecurity, however, people are more than willing to do so. Under threat of invasion, internal disorder, or economic collapse, people eagerly seek strong authority figures who can protect them.
Conversely, conditions of prosperity and security are conducive to tolerance of diversity in general and democracy in particular. This helps explain a long-established finding: rich societies are much likelier to be democratic than poor ones. One contributing factor is that the authoritarian reaction is strongest under conditions of insecurity.
The postmodern shift involves an intergenerational change in a wide variety of basic social norms, from cultural norms linked with ensuring survival of the species to norms linked with the pursuit of individual well-being. For example, postmaterialists and the young are markedly more tolerant of homosexuality than are materialists and the elderly, and they are far more permissive than materialists in their attitudes toward abortion, divorce, extramarital affairs, prostitution, and euthanasia. There is also a gradual shift in job motivations, from maximizing one’s income and job security toward a growing insistence on interesting and meaningful work. Economic accumulation for the sake of economic security was the central goal of industrial society. Ironically, their attainment set in motion a process of gradual cultural change that has made these goals less central, bringing about a rejection of the hierarchical institutions that helped attain them.