Value Change in Global Perspective

4. Long-Term Value Change in Western Europe

CHAPTER 4 Long-Term Value Change in Western Europe The long-term trend toward Postmaterialist values results largely from the gradual process by which younger generations replace older generations. Generational replacement continuously transforms all societies. Replacement can play a major role in transforming the political attitudes and behaviors among mass publics. During the 1930s and 1940s, replacement helped make the Democrats the majority party in the United States (Andersen 1979; Beck 1974), and during the postwar years replacement was a major force eroding American party loyalties (Abramson 1983, 1989a; Beck 1984). Replacement benefited the British Labour party during the 1960s (Butler and Stokes 1974), but it contributed to the erosion of British partisan loyalties between 1964 and 1987 (Abramson 1992). Between 1969 and 1988, replacement contributed to the decline of the Alignment in Israel (Abramson 1989b, 1990). During the postwar years, replacement may have contributed to a more partisan electorate in West Germany (Baker, Dalton, and Hildebrandt 1981; Norpoth 1984). Moreover, replacement can also help to transform political values. For example , replacement helped to increase political tolerance in the United States between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s (Abramson 1983; Davis 1975). Generational replacement clearly has the potential for creating or contributing to a trend toward Postmaterialism. In every Western European country studied by the EuroBarometer surveys, young Europeans are more likely to have Postmaterialist values than their elders. 1 Indeed, in 39 of the 40 societies surveyed by the 1990-91 World Values Survey (all except India) young adults are more likely to have Postmaterialist values than their elders. As Herbert H. Hyman (1972, 243) observed, "It is the inevitable fact of life that the young will replace the old and will determine the future course of any trend. Thus if the young differ from the old, and were to continue to do so despite their own aging, some prediction can be ventured." Young Europeans have different values than their elders, a finding that we will document in this chapter. But do they continue to differ despite their own aging? If young adults tend to become more Materialistic as they age, the relative Postmaterialism of the young will not lead to rising levels of Postmaterialism among mass publics. As we shall see, however, in Germany, Britain, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Denmark, and Ireland, young adults 41 42 Value Change in Global Perspective do not become more Materialistic as they age. Belgium is an exception, for reasons we will discuss. The impact of generational replacement depends partly on the extent to which the young and old differ in their values. It also depends upon the speed by which the population itself is transformed. In advanced industrial societies, replacement is gradual. Generational Replacement between 1970 and 1992 To determine how much replacement took place during the past 22 years, we employed national census data reporting the population by single years of age. Using these census results, we computed the number of adults in each of the cohort categories that we used in our European Community surveys. In our appendix, we present the distribution of the adult population in Germany, Britain, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Italy at the end of 1970 and the end of 1992, and also the distribution of the adult population in Denmark and Ireland at the end of 1973 and 1992 (see table AI). The overall pattern of change is similar in all eight countries, although there are some cross-national differences. In all eight countries, the absolute number of adults born before 1916 diminished through death, and their relative size diminished further as a result of new cohorts coming of age. In Germany, Britain, France, and Belgium, these older cohorts made up a third of the adult population in 1970, but only 7 percent by the end of 1992. In Italy, cohorts born before 1916 made up 29 percent of the adult population in 1970, but only 6 percent in 1992, while in The Netherlands these cohorts fell from 27 percent to 5 percent. In Denmark and Ireland, where we examine change over 19 years, the cohorts born before 1916 made up just over a fourth of the adult population at the end of 1973; by the end of 1992 these cohorts made up only 7 percent of it in Denmark and only 5 percent of it in Ireland. In the first six countries, persons born after 1955 were too young to be included in our 1970 sample. By 1986, the European Community surveys were...