What Is Meant by “post-Materialism" and What Is Its Relevance to Contemporary European Society?

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Effect On Contemporary European Society

One of the important factor to mention in Post-materialism is generation replacement, which indicates the life changing social experiences that an young person faces, and causes them to change values. In adolescence, one often does not need to worry about materialistic things such as finding a job, paying the bill and raring next generation…etc. As they become an adult, these materialistic issues will appear. This is called the life-cycle effect, which means that people are post-materialist when they are young and they gradually become materialist as they grow older. This was not shown in Inglehart’s research. However he has shown the generation and period effect. From the evidence collected by the survey research from six western European countries, Inglehart and his colleagues found that ‘among those born after World War II(who were under 25 in 1970)’, slightly more post-materialist than materialists. There is a generation gap between the younger European and elders. The younger European who has not experienced with War or economic crisis are often post-materialists, and the older generation who are more materialistic. Also as the younger generation grow older, the cleavage still remain. However, there might be the period effect where a crisis happens and all of the society become more materialistic due to material insecurity.

Another factor that should be consider is “has post-materialism spread over Eastern Europe”, since they are considered less affluence region of Europe in general. Many Eastern European countries have authoritarian leadership style and pay less attention on environmental issues. There are many materialists than post-materialists.

However, Post-materialism has a great impact on Liberalism in contemporary Europe. Peoples attitudes towards gender equality and race equality has a significant increase over the past years. The diminishing cohort effects over the last twenty years in attitudes to homosexuality in Britain is a great example of the impact(Taylor 2017). The converging on social distance in Britain is another example. Europeans are more accepting on different ethic minority groups.

From the possible impact of Post-materialism, you would easily expect the rise in environmentalism. However, research shown that environmentalism has experienced a decline in Britain(BSA2012). There are still more British citizens that are worried about job security and inflation. This may be due to the political unrest. As a result of the increased post-materialism, there has been a culture shift in the rise of New Social Movements such as Peace movement, anti-trade, especially in the western European countries. The increasing number of non-profit organisation such as FOOD Programme, IAI, and SPPS, focusing on Post-materialistic issues such as obesity, ecophysiology and democracy freeddoms.

Moreover, since the end of World War II, there has seen the rising of political activism based on other values than just material interests in the European society. The growth of “post-materialist” parties such as Green-extreme-right focusing on issues such as environmentalism and social justice. New values on anti-hierarchy political system and democracy. However, the German voting turnout shows the different side of this phenomenon. From the data by World Statista(graph below), it is clear that although Germany is a developed country, its voting turnout cannot be explained by the Post-materialism theory. It is experiencing an overall downwards slope of voting turnout from 1970 to present. Because Post-materialism is about civil liberty and autonomy, then why is the voting turnout in Germany decreasing should be examined. Brooks and Manza published an article called 'Do changing values explain the new politics?’A critical assessment of the post-materialist theory analysing about one of the biggest problem to be explained in sociology is why 'stress for social change does not often come from the working class and other groups struggling solely to improve their material well-being, but rather from other groups of people disturbed with matter of culture and identity. The gay parade in the UK are participated by many heterosexual groups supporting issues that are irrelevant to them. [pic 2]

Voter turnout at general elections in Germany from 1949 to 2017

Conclusion:

Post-materialism was introduced by Ronald Inglehart, with his research about the transformation of peoples value in life. It indicates the emphasis on self-expression and autonomy. From his research, he explained two hypothesis of the reason for post-materialism, scarcity and socialisation. He also provided data from his survey research to explain the transformation in European society. Although many political scientist and sociologist criticised his theory. It is important to realise that the post-materialism theory has a great impact on the contemporary European society. Young Europeans tend to have a Post-materialistic value and older generation have a materialistic value. However, some extent of the theory is not true in modern European society, more research should be done to realise that the change in values in Modern European society is due to affluence or education.

References:

Held, M., J. Müller, F. Deutsch, E. Grzechnik & C. Welzel (2009). “Value Structure and Dimensions. Empirical Evidence from the German World Values Survey.” World Values Research 2(3):55-76.

Inglehart, R. (2008), ‘Changing Values amongWestern Publics from 1970 to 2006’ in West European Politics, 31: 1-2,130-146.

Maslow, A. and Frager, R. (1987). Motivation and personality. 3rd ed. New Delhi: Pearson Education.

Michael Terwey: ALLBUS: A German General Social Survey(2000). In: Schmollers Jahrbuch. Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- un Sozalwissenschaften. Journal of Applied Social Science Studies.

Npo.io. (2017). 7 Nonprofit Organizations Based in Europe | NPO.IO. [online] Available at: http://www.npo.io/7-nonprofit-organizations-based-in-europe/ [Accessed 1 Dec. 2017].

Oddbjørn Knutsen (2007) – The Priorities of Materialist and Post-Materialist Values in the Nordic Countries – a Five-Nation Comparison. Article first published online: 1 OCT 2007. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9477.1989.tb00091.x

Scandinavian Political Studies. Volume 12, Issue 3, pages 221–243, September 1989.

Stevenson, N (2006) "European Cosmopolitan Solidarity: Questions of Citizenship, Difference and Post-Materialism"