From Materialist to Postmaterialist Happiness?
Volume 2 (2)
Delhey, J.
This paper takes the theory of value change as developed by Inglehart as a point of de-parture and tests its implications for the determinants of human happiness. It investi-gates whether the importance of post-material concerns for happiness, relative to that of materialist concerns, is indeed higher in rich post-industrial societies. Personal auton-omy and job creativity serve as indicators for post-materialist concerns, the income do-main as an indicator for materialist concerns. The main assumption is put against data for 48 countries from wave 5 of the World Values Survey which covers the full range from poor agrarian to rich post-industrial societies. Employing a multi-level design, the paper indeed reveals a quite consistent pattern towards post-materialist happiness as we move from poor to rich societies. This pattern seems to be driven by both a devalori-zation of material concerns and a valorization of post-materialist concerns, although the evidence suggests that the former trend is stronger and more linear than the latter.

Citation: Delhey, Jan (2009). "From Materialist to Postmaterialist Happiness?." World Values Research 2 (2): 31-55 http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org

WVR0202.pdf [Download count:3466]

(Click for more...)
 
 
View by Author
View by Title
Search text:
25 Years of Comparative Values Surveys [Yilmaz Esmer and Thorleif Pettersson, editors.]
A Clash of Civilizations? Preferences for Religious Political Leaders in 86 Nations [Nate Breznau, Valerie A. Lykes, Jonathan Kelley, M. D. R. Evans]
A Tale of Culture-Bound Regime Evolution: The Centennial Democratic Trend and Its Recent Reversal (Appendix to the article) [Christian Welzel, Lennart Brunkert, Stefan Kruse]
A World of Three Cultures [Miguel E. Basáñez and Foreword by Ronald F. Inglehart]
Agency, Values, and Well-Being: A Human Development Model [Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R.]
America's Crisis of Values [Wayne E. Baker]
Are Levels of Democracy Affected by Mass Attitudes? [Welzel, C.]
Attitudes Toward Democracy: Mexico in Comparative Perspective. [Moreno, A. & Méndez, P.]
Authority orientations and democratic attitudes in East Asia: a test of the 'Asian Values' hypothesis [Dalton, R. J. & Ong, Nhu-Ngoc]
Authority Orientations and Political Support: A Cross-national Analysis of Satisfaction with Governments and Democracy. [Nevitte, N. & Kanji, M.]
Basic Values and Civic Education - A comparative analysis of adolescent orientations towards gender equality and good citizenship [Pettersson, T.]
Before the Emergence of Critical Citizens: Economic Development and Political Trust in China [Wang, Zhengxu]
Citizen-making: The role of national goals for socializing children. [Michael Harris Bond, Vivian Miu-Chi Lun]
Civil Society and Social Capital in Vietnam [Dalton, R. J. & Ong, Nhu-Ngoc]
Climatoeconomic Roots of Survival Versus Self-expression Cultures [Van de Vliert, E.]
Closer to the East or the West? [Rádai, E. & Tóth, I. G.]
Commentary on Widmalm: A Rebuttal [Welzel, C., Inglehart, R. & Deutsch, F.]
Corruption and Democracy: A Cultural Assessment [Moreno, A.]
Corruption, Culture, and Communism [Sandholtz, W. & Taagepera, R.]
Cultural Barriers to Women's Leadership: A Worldwide Comparison [Inglehart, R. & Norris, P.]
Cultural Change, Slow and Fast: The Distinctive Trajectory of Norms Governing Gender Equality and Sexual Orientation [Ronald F. Inglehart, Eduard Ponarin, Ronald C. Inglehart]
Cultural Evolution [Ronald Inglehart]
Changing Mass Priorities: The Link between Modernization and Democracy [Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C.]
Changing Values among Western Publics from 1970 to 2006 [Inglehart, R. F.]
Changing Values in the Islamic World and the West: Social Tolerance and the Arab Spring [Ronald Inglehart]
Changing Values, Persisting Cultures [Edited by Thorleif Pettersson and Yilmaz Esmer]
Declining Willingness to Fight in Wwars: The Individual-level Basis of the Long Peace [Ronald F. Inglehart, Bi Puranen, Christian Welzel]
Democracy and Markets: Citizen Values in the Pacific Rim Region [Dalton, R. J. & Ong, Nhu-Ngoc]
Democracy and Political Culture in Eastern Europe [by Hans-Dieter Klingemann (Editor), Dieter Fuchs (Editor), Jan Zielonka (Editor)]
Democracy Misunderstood: Authoritarian Notions of Democracy around the Globe (online appendix to the article) [Welzel, C., Kirsch, H.]
Democratic Aspirations and Democratic Ideals: Citizen Orientations toward Democracy in East Asia [Dalton, R. J. & Doh Chull Shin]
Democratic Institutions and Political Culture: Misconceptions in Addressing the Ecological Fallacy [Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C.]
Democratization [Edited by Christian Haerpfer, Patrick Bernhagen, Ronald F Inglehart, and Christian Welzel]
Democratization as an Emancipative Process [Welzel, C.]
Democratization as the Growth of Freedom: The Human Development Perspective [Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R.]
Democratization in the Human Development Perspective [Welzel, C.]
Demokratisierung und Freiheitsstreben: Die Perspektive der Humanentwicklung [Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R.]
Development and Democracy: What We Know about Modernization Today [Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C.]
Development, Freedom and Rising Happiness: A Global Perspective 1981-2007 [Inglehart, R., Foa, R., Peterson, C. & Welzel, C.]
Do Islamic Orientations Influence Attitudes Toward Democracy in the Arab World? - Evidence from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Algeria [Tessler, M.]
Dynamics of Cultural Change: The Human Development Perspective [Abdollahian, Mark, Travis Coan, Hana Oh, and Birol Yesilada]
Effective democracy, mass culture, and the quality of elites: The human development perspective [Welzel, C.]
Emancipative Values and Democracy: Response to Hadenius and Teorell [Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R.]
Examining the relation of religion and spirituality to subjective well-being across national cultures [Lun, Vivian Miu-Chi; Bond, Michael Harris]
Exploring the Unknown: Predicting the Responses of Publics not yet Surveyed [Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C.]
Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation [Welzel, Christian]
Gender Egalitarism []
Gender Equality and Democracy [Inglehart, R., Norris, P., & Welzel, C.]
Genes, Culture, Democracy, and Happiness [Inglehart, R. & Klingemann, H-D.]
Genetic Factors, Cultural Predispositions, Happiness and Gender Equality [Ronald F. Inglehart, Svetlana Borinskaya, Anna Cotter, Jaanus Jarro, Ronald C. Inglehart, Eduard Ponarin, Christian Welzel]
Giving Up on God: The Global Decline of Religion [Inglehart, R.]
Global Power Transition and the Future of the European Union [Birol A. Yeşilada, Jacek Kugler, Gaspare Genna, Osman Göktuğ Tanrıkulu]
Globalization and Postmodern Values [Inglehart, R.]
How do They Look at Us? [Samir Abu Rumman]
How Selfish Are Self-Expression Values? A Civicness Test [Welzel, C.]
Individual Modernity [Welzel, C.]
Intergenerational Differences in Political Values and Attitudes in Stable and New Democracies [Siemienska, R.]
Internet Appedix to the article by Alexander A.C. & C. Welzel [Alexander, A. C., & Welzel, C.]
Is There an Islamic Civilization? [Esmer, Y.]
Islam & the West: Testing the Clash of Civilizations Thesis [Norris, P. & Inglehart, R.]
Islam and global governance - Orientations towards the United Nations and Human Rights among four Islamic societies and four Western [Pettersson, T.]
Islamic attitudes and the support for Gender Equality and Democracy in Seven Arab Countries, and the role of anti-‐Western feelings [Spierings, Niels]
La escala de postmaterialismo como medida del cambio de valores en las sociedadas contemporanéas [Díez-Nicolás, J.]
La felicidad de las naciones [Marita Carballo]
Liberal Democracy and Peace in South Africa [Kotzé, H., du Toit, Pierre]
Liberalism, Postmaterialism, and the Growth of Freedom [Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R.]
Mass Beliefs and Democratization [Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R.]
Mexico's Evolving Democracy [J.Dominguez, K. Greene, Ch. Lawson, A. Moreno, eds.]
Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy [R.Inglehart & C.Welzel]
Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values [Inglehart, R. & Baker, W. E.]
Modernization, Existential Security and Cultural Change: Reshaping Human Motivations and Society [Ronald Inglehart]
Muslims and Democracy - An empirical critique of Fukuyama's culturalist approach [al-Braizat, F.]
Political Culture and Democracy: Analyzing Cross-Level Linkages [Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C.]
Postmaterialism and the Social Ecosystem [Díez Nicolás, J.]
Religion, democratic values and political conflict [Y. Esmer, H. Klingemann, B. Puranen, editors]
Religion’s Sudden Decline. Why It’s Happening and What Comes Next [Inglehart, R.]
Religous Parties and Politics in Pakistan [Tanwir, F.]
Revising the Value Shift Hypothesis: A descriptive Analysis of South Africa's Value Priorities between 1990 and 2001. [Kotzé, H. & Lombard, K.]
Rising Tide [Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris]
Sacred and Secular [Pippa Norris, Ronald Inglehart]
Social Capital, Voluntary Associations and Collective Action: Which Aspects of Social Capital Have the Greatest [Welzel, C., Inglehart, R. & Deutsch, F.]
Social position, information and postmaterialism [Díez Nicolás, J.]
Social Relations and Social Capital in Vietnam: Findings from the 2001 World Values Survey [Dalton, R. J., Pham Minh Hac, Pham Thanh Nghi and Ong, Nhu-Ngoc T]
Social Relations and Social Capital in Vietnam: The 2001 World Values Survey [Dalton, R. J., Pham Minh Hac, Pham Thanh Nghi & Ong, Nhu-Ngoc T]
Socio-Cultural Differences in Social Exclusion [Diez-Nicolas, J., Lopez-Narbona, A.-M.]
Strengthening Electoral Integrity: The Pragmatic Case for Assistance [Pippa Norris]
Subjective Security in Spain: Building a Syntethical Security Index (SSSI) [Juan Díez Nicolás]
Subjective well-being rankings of 82 societies (based on combined Happiness and Life Satisfaction scores) [Inglehart, R.]
TABLES: Before the Emergence of Critical Citizens: Economic Development and Political Trust in China [Wang, Zhengxu]
TABLES: The Social Transformation of Trust in Government [Dalton, R. J.]
Tendencias mundiales de cambio en los valores sociales y politicos [Diez Nicolas, J., Inglehart, R., eds.]
The Civic Culture Transformed [under edition of Russel Dalton and Christian Welzel in honor of Ronald Inglehart]
The China Puzzle: Declining Happiness in a Rising Economy [Brockmann, H., J. Delhay, H. Yuan & Welzel, C.]
The Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough [Alesina, A., Giuliano, P. & Nunn, N.]
The relations between religion and politics in the contemporary Western world: The impact of secularization, postmodernization and peoples' basic value orientations [Pettersson, T.]
The Role of Ordinary People in Democratization [Welzel, C. & Inglehart, R.]
The Silent Revolution in Reverse [Inglehart, R., Miller, J., Woods, L.]
The Social Transformation of Trust in Government [Dalton, R. J.]
The theory of human development: A cross-cultural analysis [Welzel, C., Inglehart, R. & Klingemann, H-D.]
The Vietnamese Public in Transition, The World Values Survey: Vietnam 2001 [Dalton, R. J. & Ong, Nhu-Ngoc T]
The Worldviews of Islamic Publics in Global Perspective [Inglehart, R.]
The Worldviews of Islamic Publics: The Cases of Egypt, Iran, and Jordan [Moaddel, M. & Azadarmaki, Taqhi]
Theories of Democratization [Welzel, C.]
Trends in Political Action: The Developmental Trend and the Post-Honeymoon Decline [Inglehart, R. & Catterberg, G.]
Trump and the Xenophobic Populist Parties: The Silent Revolution in Reverse [Ronald Inglehart, Pippa Norris]
Two Contradictory Hypotheses on Globalization: Societal Convergence or Civilization Differentiation and Clash [Díez-Nicolás, J.]
Value Change in Latin America/ El cambio de valores en América Latina [Marita Carballo and Alejandro Moreno. Eds.]
Value Priorities in Israeli Society: An Examination of Inglehart's Theory of Modernization and Cultural Variation. [Yuchtman-Ya'ar, E.]
Values and Perceptions of the Islamic and Middle Eastern Publics [Mansoor Moaddell, ed.]
Voting in Old and New Democracies [by Richard Gunther (Editor), Paul A. Beck (Editor), Pedro C. Magalhães (Editor), Alejandro Moreno (Editor)]
What Insights can Multi-Country Surveys Provide about People and Societies? [Inglehart, Ronald and Welzel, Christian]
Why Are Women Politically Active? - The Household, Public Space, and Political Participation in India [Chhibber, P.]
Why Elections Fail [Pippa Norris]
Why Electoral Integrity Matters [Pippa Norris]
Why the Future is Democratic [Welzel, C.]