EDUCATION, SECURITY, AND POSTMATERIALISM - A COMMENT

Duch and Taylor (1993) contest Inglehart's thesis that secure conditio ns during pre-adult socialization contribute to developing postmateria list values. They base their conclusions on an analysis of Euro-Barome ter surveys conducted in eight West European societies and on a survey of the European Soviet Union. Their analysist provides an inadequate test of Inglehart's theory because it excludes respondents socialized during periods of major deprivation-sharply reducing the explanatory p ower of generational differences-and because it fails to recognize tha t education is strongly related to social background. Duch and Taylor also conclude that economic security is not linked with postmaterialis t values at the aggregate level, confusing the consequences of economi c level with those of economic growth. Analyses of the 40-nation 1990- 91 World Values Survey (including data from six societies of the forme r Soviet Union and five Eastern European countries) demonstrate that ( 1) countries with high levels of GNP/capita tend to have high proporti ons of postmaterialists and (2) countries that have experienced high r ates of economic growth tend to show relatively large differences betw een the values of younger and older generations.