Materialism, Gender, and Family Values in Europe

Kimiko Tanaka, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Deborah Lowry, University of Michigan

Ideational change has been posited as one of key factors behind shifting family and fertility behaviors. Values are thought to be driving factors behind subsequent practices. Still, factors that shape those family and parenthood values have received relatively less attention. Moreover, the possibility that these factors vary in type or extent by gender or across socio-cultural context has not been adequately explored. Using the 1999 European Values Survey, this paper aims to contribute to knowledge about family values formation by examining whether the tendency to express traditional views about family is associated with the extent to which a person adheres to “(post-)materialist” values. Additionally, we examine the extent to which geopolitical context is associated with family values. Our results suggest that the relationship between materialism and traditional family values varies by gender and the particular family value in question, and that geopolitical boundaries had a strong association with family values.