Post-materialism’s Social Class Divide: Experiences and Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Over last half of the twentieth century, a silent revolution in post-material values made significant advances around the world. The formation of post-material values also resulted in expanded participation in post-material experiences such as joining voluntary groups, pursuing creativity and independence in the world of work, and engaging in political actions—experiences that go beyond a strict focus on accumulating economic wealth and material possessions. Because social class position matters for being a post-materialist, a class divide exists between middle-class post-materialists and working-class materialists who occupy the lower end of the social class spectrum. This article will show that such a divide occurs, first for participation in post-material experiences and second for the attainment of life satisfaction. Using data from the World Values Survey, evidence will be provided in this article showing that members of the working class participate less in post-material experiences than others and, as a consequence, enjoy lower life satisfaction than others, especially post-materialists. In light of working-class-supported right-wing populism’s recent emergence in the USA and Europe, this social class divide takes on a special significance in explaining shifting trends in politics and public policy.

Keywords

Post-materialism social class post-material experience life satisfaction

Introduction

Growing up in economically secure conditions stimulates liberal post-material values among younger generations such as freedom of expression; social tolerance of all irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity, or sexual predilections; a humane society based on ideas rather than money; and democracy in all of life’s arenas. These values are given disproportionate support by younger individuals in comparison to such materialist goals as increased economic growth and expanded personal security (Inglehart, 2008; Inglehart & Abramson, 1999). For the final three decades of the twentieth century, a silent revolution in the formation of post-material values made significant advances in many western countries (Inglehart, 1971; Inglehart & Norris, 2017). The formation of post-material values also apparently resulted in the advance of post-material experiences such as joining voluntary groups, pursuing creativity and independence in the world of work, and engaging in political actions, actions that go beyond a strict focus on accumulating financial wealth and material possessions (Booth, 2018). Henceforth in this article, the terms post-materialism and post-materialist will encompass both post-material values as defined by Ronald Inglehart and post-material experiences.

The emergence of post-material values among younger generations according to Inglehart is premised on a threshold of physical and economic security as one is coming of age and is consequently more common among those from more affluent middle- and upper-class backgrounds than less economically secure working-class backgrounds (Inglehart & Abramson, 1994). Social class thus appears to matter in the formation of post-materialist values and also in the seeking of post-material experiences. For this reason, a class divide between middle-class post-materialists and working-class materialists, who occupy the lower end of the social class spectrum, is likely.

This divide is of special interest because post-materialism is intrinsically anti-capitalist in its switch to a life less focused on the accumulation of market-purchased goods. Carried to its logical conclusion, such a switch means a dampening of demand growth for consumer goods, without which modern capitalism loses an essential driver of its expanding global influence. The post-materialist movement according to Inglehart and Welzel is elite-challenging and supports an expansion of democracy in all of life’s arenas including the workplace, something that would be antithetical to the bureaucratic form of control exercised within the modern capitalist corporation (Welzel et al., 2005). Historically, the central opposing force to unfettered capitalism has been the labour movement driven by the tendency of large corporations in the pursuit of profits to place downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on labour effort. Given that the essential purpose of wage labour is to earn a living, the fundamental motivation of paid workers in life is materialist in its orientation. Materialist members of the working class and middle-class post-materialists both have interests counter to the unhindered operation of capitalist enterprises, but these interests differ. Workers desire increased incomes and economic security and post-materialists desire increase freedom of expression, expanded say over the organization of the work process, and the enlargement of life prospects beyond market transactions. Note that in its heyday, the materialist-based labour movement did much for gaining income equity for working-class individuals. With the modern decline of that movement the political forces behind social change have shifted to individuals with a post-materialist outlook and away from working-class organizations (Hacker & Pierson, 2010, pp. 44–45; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005).

Hence, the intention of this article is to document and describe the social class divide between post-materialists and members of the working-class in terms of participation in post-material experiences and the attainment of life satisfaction. The division is hypothesized to occur first for participation in post-material experiences, and second for the attainment of life satisfaction as follows: (a) Participation in post-material experience declines moving down the social class hierarchy; (b) participation in post-material experiences increases the extent of life satisfaction; (c) life satisfaction diminishes moving down the social class ladder; and finally (d) a link between reduced life satisfaction for the working class and their lower level of participation in post-material experiences cannot be ruled out. These are the hypotheses addressed and tested in the pages to follow. In light of right-wing populism’s recent emergence in the USA and Europe, driven in part by working-class discontent, the social class divide described here takes on a special significance (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, 2017; Norris & Inglehart, 2019). That divide could well be part of the reason for populism’s rising influence.

The Social Class Divide: Participation in Post-material Experiences

Post-material Values and Experiences

While many individuals are strongly oriented to expanding and reshaping their private sphere of material possession, some look increasingly to enjoying the publicly available experiences of the world’s cultural and natural legacy. The former I shall refer to as economic materialists, and the later as economic post-materialists. For a materialist, life’s focus is on gaining control over tangible or intangible objects and using or transforming them to satisfy one’s deepest wishes. The experience of such control and the resulting manipulations of the material stuff of life is sensual and virtual, a product of a perception-driven, conscious thought process. For post-materialists, the essential quest in life is for experiences of the physical and virtual world apart from any requirements for ownership and private control. Some material ownership and control are inevitably a part of all our lives—we each need our own private supply of food, clothing, living space, and such—but post-materialists look increasingly for experiences not necessarily contingent on the ownership of physical and virtual objects in their field of perception. To summarize, a materialist is someone whose highest priority is seeking the ownership of objects as an essential ingredient in the mental satisfaction interactions with them bring. A post-materialist to the contrary is someone whose basic need for feelings of control over objects has been met and is instead more directly oriented to the experiences of tangible and intangible things and relationships in the worldly environment (Booth, 2018). At any point in time within a representative population of individuals, the divide between materialists and post-materialists will not be absolute; that population will be spread out along a continuum from pure materialists to pure post-materialist. The World Values Survey (referred to as WVS hereafter) indices developed below to measure post-materialism will reflect the presence of such a continuum.

Because our basic values are formed by adulthood, whether or not we face economic scarcity or social upheavals during our youth matters. As we age, our orientations fluctuate to some extent with economic and social conditions, but our basic outlook remains essentially unchanged. In explaining this position, Inglehart offers a socialization hypothesis claiming that our basic value structure is formed in our youth, and a scarcity hypothesis proposing that our values will focus most heavily on those items we lack when coming of age. If, for instance, our life is highly insecure when we are young, one of our highest priorities will always be a safe and secure social and material environment (Inglehart, 1971; Inglehart & Abramson, 1994). This is not to say that an individual’s values won’t change over time, but basic outlooks will be strongly anchored in coming of age experiences. The result of this behaviour pattern will be an increase in the extent of post-material values as younger generations replace older in industrial and post-industrial countries that have realized substantial increases in per capita incomes and thus in personal economic security. According to Inglehart, this inter-generational shift in value orientations can be explained ultimately in terms of Abraham Maslow’s famous theory of the hierarchy of human needs (Inglehart, 1971; Maslow, 1987). The central point of Inglehart’s research findings is that younger generations come of age farther up the hierarchy of needs than older and thus place relatively more importance on post-materialist as opposed to materialist social goals (Booth, 2018). In this work Inglehart post-material values will be measured with an index that takes on a value of 0–5, indicating the number of post-material social priorities selected by each WVS respondent from 12 options, 6 materialist and 6 post-materialist (see Table A1).

While Inglehart post-material values are based on individual expressions about social goals, a post-materialist more generally is not just someone with a certain value orientation, but a person who lives in a certain way and pursues certain kinds of activities. A materialist is someone highly focused on the accumulation of financial wealth and personal possessions that require extensive engagement in economic transactions. A post-materialist is someone who has achieved a sufficient standard of living and has decided to pursuit extensive activities beyond the purely economic. Post-material experience activities are consequently those undertaken for their own sake and are not centrally focused on engaging in marketplace transactions. Three activities of this kind postulated here are: (a) voluntary group membership, (b) creative and independent work such as that undertaken by artists and (c) political action beyond voting in support of some cause. Each measures a dimension of post-material, action-oriented experience where private possessions or wealth are secondary and, in some cases, inessential to the activity (Booth, 2018).

An index of voluntary group membership can be constructed from the WVS inquiry about respondent participation in (a) sport or recreational, (b) art, music, or educational, (c) environmental or (d) humanitarian or charitable organizations. Inactive membership in any is assigned a value of 1 and active membership a value of 2 for each of the four organizational categories and then added up for each survey respondent (World Values Survey Association, 2015). These organizations were chosen on the assumption that participation in each type likely requires a modest amount of material possessions or financial wealth. The particular kind of groups selected here are those that generally provide a public benefit of some kind and would consequently be of interest to individuals with post-material values who seek interesting and self-expressive experiences and advancing social purposes. People choose to belong to other kinds of organizations, including labour unions, political organizations, professional, and self-help groups, but these generally have a ‘utilitarian’ focus and provide a private benefit of some kind to their members. Memberships in utilitarian groups was virtually flat globally between 1980 and 2000 in post-industrial societies, but public benefit groups experienced a substantial growth in this time period (Welzel et al., 2005).

The extent of creative and independent tasks at work is a sum of two separate WVS questions each measured on a 1–10 scale, first, whether work tasks are mostly routine or mostly creative and, second, whether much independence is exercised in performing work tasks. Seeking work that has such characteristics doesn’t necessary required one to be materially wealthy to begin with, as in the case of so-called starving artists (Alper & Wassall, 2006; Lloyd, 2002). Work does necessitate participation in either a product market for the self-employed or a labour market, and is inevitably subject to market transactions unlike membership in a voluntary organization or participation in political action. Nonetheless, the choices made around work have dimensions that go beyond financial reward such as the extent of creative and independent activity in the work process. In short, work is undertaken by some for more than just earning a living. The quality of work matters and may be an essential element in the pursuit of post-material goals. Indeed, using WVS, Wave 5 data, Delhey finds job creativity to be positively associated with life satisfaction moving up the Inglehart 4-item post-materialism scale (Delhey, 2009).

Participation in political action is measured here as the sum of the number of times (up to a maximum of four as specified in the WVS questions) that a respondent signed a petition, joined a boycott, attended a peaceful demonstration, joined a strike, or participated in some other act of protest. Participation in such activities normally doesn’t require much in the way of material possessions and financial wealth. Actions of this kind are often the product of mass organization undertaken by coalitions of organizations or informally and spontaneously by individual activists and can frequently be described as elite-challenging in character as already noted. Again, such actions experienced an upswing in the last two decades of the twentieth century in post-industrial societies (Welzel et al., 2005).

Post-materialism and Social Class

The WVS includes a question about self-identified social class measured from higher to lower: 1 = upper class, 2 = upper middle class, 3 = lower middle class, 4 = working class, 5 = lower class (World Values Survey Association, 2015). For expository purposes here, classes 4 and class 5 are combined to be described as the working class. Normally social class is not measured directly by researchers who frequently use alternative measures of socio-economic status such as income or education, but these are only partial proxies for social class. Class identity is likely to have cultural dimensions beyond education and material well-being that define one’s position in the social pecking order and sense of social solidarity. This would argue for direct inclusion of self-identified social class instead of proxies. Self-identification by class, such as that used in the WVS, has been criticized on grounds of a tendency to wish fulfilment in reporting (Laidley, 2013). According to the actual distributions of the sample population by social class in the WVS, Wave 6 data, the relative per cent of the sample in the bottom 40th percentile of the self-reported social class measure is 40.5 per cent, and the same number for the self-reported income measure is 39.7 per cent. If there was substantial wish fulfilment in social class reporting, it seems likely these two numbers would be farther apart. In any case, if there was wish fulfilment in reporting, the social class index (higher to lower), would simply be shifted downward somewhat and could still be useful as a relative social class measure. In the WVS data, self-identified social class (higher to lower) is correlated to self-identified relative income (−0.47) and educational attainment (−0.31) at statistically significant levels. While social class (higher to lower) is indeed negatively correlated to income and education, the correlations are not so strong as to indicate that social class is simply a negative proxy for income or education. Consequently, social class itself is more than just an economic measure and likely includes cultural and social dimensions that ought to be taken into account, especially in this day and age of a rise in right-wing populist political sentiments with working class backing (Norris & Inglehart, 2019). Hence, in the following analysis self-identified social class (higher to lower) will be considered as a potential negative predictor of post-materialism.

A key issue in these pages is the relationship between social class and post-materialism. While social class has seldom been a focus of attention in studies of post-materialism, it has been found to be negatively correlated in the USA with the 12-item Inglehart post-material values index described above for Wave 2 of the survey (Inglehart & Abramson, 1999). For the latest wave (Wave 6), social class (higher to lower, 1–5) is negatively correlated for the total sample (60 countries) at a statistically significant level to Inglehart (12-item) post-material values with a coefficient of −0.064. Both educational attainment and income, possible proxies for social class, are also significantly correlated in the Wave 6 total sample to Inglehart post-material values with respective coefficients equal to 0.10 and 0.054. In a recent study for the USA using the WVS, Wave 6 data, education was found to be a statistically significant predictor of Inglehart post-material values and the three post-material experiences (voluntary group membership, creativity and independence at work, and political action) described above (Booth, 2018). Based on these initial findings, social class (higher to lower) is hypothesized here to be a negative predictor of Inglehart post-material values and participation in each of the three post-material experiences. If this is the case, a social class divide indeed exists between post-materialists and working-class materialists at the lower end of the social class hierarchy.

The Social Class Divide: Life Satisfaction and Post-material Experience

Does engaging in the post-material experiences described above improve expressed life satisfaction? If it fails to do so, then the rationale for such experiences would be open to question. Whether or not post-material experiences enhance such satisfaction clearly matters and constitutes an essential concern. A second concern has to do with a potential social class divide on participation in post-material experiences as well as in life satisfaction flowing from those experiences. Does descending the social class scale lead to reduced participation in post-material experiences and result in a less life satisfaction? If so, then a significant gap exists between the experiences and life satisfaction of middle-class post-materialists and working-class materialists. The latter lack as much economic security as the former and suffer for it in terms of diminished life satisfaction. The post-material silent revolution amounts to a middle-class revolt against capitalist materialism as such, one that differs qualitatively from past proletarian revolts against capitalist labour exploitation and its materialist inequities.

Economists and other researchers have long noted that increasing one’s income is subject to diminishing marginal utility, meaning that the addition of life satisfaction (a measure of subjective well-being) flowing from a given increment of income diminishes as total income rises. Of course, it is still possible for subjective well-being to continue to rise as income grows, although with diminishing increments at the margin. This is the essential conclusion of economic research using a variety of data sources on the relation of subjective well-being to income across countries (Stevenson & Wolfers, 2013). A recent work confirms the importance of income for subjective well-being around the world, but points out that other variables matter as well, including environmental health, equality, and freedom (Diener & Tay, 2015).

Despite such findings, happiness researchers continue to postulate that materialists who focus on financial success and acquiring possessions will be less satisfied than others because they are caught up on an economic treadmill that requires more and more of the day earning and buying in order to sustain the delights of consumption. Life on this treadmill sacrifices a deeper happiness that comes from having the time to engage fully in a variety of satisfying pursuits: interacting with family and friends; involvement in community activities, such as amateur sports, charitable causes, politics, or church; putting energy into some activity so engaging as to cause one to lose all sense of self-consciousness; or accomplishing some purpose that expresses one’s deepest commitment to highly regarded personal values (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2009; Diener et al., 2009; Diener & Seligman, 2009; Garhammer, 2002). This losing of self-consciousness through intense engagement psychologists refer to as flow, and a wide variety of creative and engaging activities can produce it (Csikszentmihályi, 1990).

Survey research indeed confirms that materialists do experience less life satisfaction than others, primarily because they spend less time with their families and more on financial pursuits (Nickerson et al., 2003, 2007). But some findings paint a more nuanced picture of the relationship between materialism and happiness. In college, materialistic students tend on average to be more outgoing and popular, less accomplished academically, and more likely to take up majors with the best income earning prospects, such as business and engineering, than their less materialistic counterparts. After college, many, but not all, materialistically oriented graduates achieve financial success. Those that do turn out to be just as satisfied with their lives as their peers who care less about making money, but those who aspire to financial accomplishment and fail to achieve it experience a small but statistically significantly lower level of life satisfaction than others, again because of less time spent with family. Actual economic success in effect compensates for lost satisfaction from extra time on an economic treadmill, but if you jump on the treadmill and fail to advance, your happiness suffers. Materialistic individuals who achieve economic success appear to be as happy as anyone else, and those who fail suffer for it, but not by much. While materialism may not detract from happiness, this research also confirms that in college many do pursuit less materialistic majors such as English, philosophy, music, religion, and education and ultimately seek careers in art, writing, journalism, music, scientific research, or religious work and are satisfied with their lives for doing so.

Post-materialism and the Social Class Divide: Statistical Evidence and Discussion

The Data

The data used in the following comes from the WVS, Wave 6, a global sample survey of a full array of human values under the auspices of the World Values Survey Association composed of 100 member countries (World Values Survey Association, 2015). For a full explanation of the methodology behind the survey, go to the WVS website, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org. The survey is funded by member countries and a variety of foundations and administered in person to a randomly selected set of respondents by professional staff and is confined to adults 18 and older. Wave 6 data was collected over the period 2011–2014 and includes 60 countries (see Table A3) and a total sample of 86,274 respondents. The survey covers more than 200 discrete questions that include a substantial number of value-oriented inquiries. The questions used in this article are reproduced in Table A1 and the mean values for this data are reported in Table A2.

All data analyses in this article are performed using mixed-effects regressions and statistical calculations from STATA statistical package (Stata Corporation, 2015). The mixed-effects approach calculates a separate random-effects constant for each country, and one country level independent variable, the Human Development Index (HDI), is included in each regression equation (Tables 1–3), as will be explained below. As with any large survey, some respondent observations will be missing in the data, and these are excluded from the analysis here. For example, HDI data is unavailable for Taiwan, and that country is excluded from any statistical calculations that include the HDI. The sample for questions asking about creativity and independence at work is reduced in number because not all respondents are employed. Note that ‘Trying to make our cities and countryside more beautiful’ is excluded from the WVS post-materialism index (reducing its range to 0–5) because in past research this priority failed to statistically distinguish materialists from post-materialist but remains in the survey to retain comparability between different waves of the WVS (Inglehart, 1990).

The 60 countries sampled by the WVS do doubtlessly differ in many economic and cultural dimensions, but especially in terms of advancements in economic and social well-being. The extent of economic and social development in these countries ranges widely, opening up the possibility that post-material values and experiences will depend not only on personal circumstance, but on the conditions faced by individuals within each country as well. A comprehensive and widely used measure of economic and social development across countries is the HDI compiled by the United Nations Development Programme (2018). The index measures human capabilities across countries, and includes in its construction indices of life expectancy, education, and gross national income per capita (measured on a purchasing power basis). The formation of fundamental values and the choices one makes about the path taken through life could well depend on not only the overall level of material affluence in a country, but also the educational opportunities and level of health available to everyone. To live a good life, personal circumstances matter; but the social conditions experienced on a daily basis do so as well. Consequently, statistical analyses of post-material values and experiences and of life satisfaction conducted here take account of the country-level HDI. The 2013 HDI is reported for the sample countries in Table A3. The mid-point of the sample distribution equals approximately .753 and the sample distribution by country ranges from a low of .503 for Zimbabwe to a high of .931 for Australia.

Participation in Post-material Experiences

Dependent variables for Table 1 post-materialism regression equations include the following: (a) Inglehart post-materialism (12 items), (b) membership in voluntary groups, (c) creativity and independence at work and (d) participation in political actions. The independent variables in each equation include three demographic control variables (the age cohort, education, and female gender), the HDI to account for country differences in the level of economic and social advancement, and social class (higher to lower, 1–5 scale). Inglehart post-materialism is included as a possible predictor for the three post-material experiences to test whether values matter for the choice of what to do in one’s life.

Table 1.

Participation in Post-material Experiences and Social Class: Mixed-effects Regressions (coefficient, SE, z)

Independent Variables	Inglehart Post-material Index	Membership in Voluntary Organizations	Creativity and Independence at Work−1	Creativity and Independence at Work−2	Participation in Political Action
Constant	−7.223536 0.6192676 −11.66	−6.981283 0.8954005 −7.80	41.01429 2.426821 16.90	36.68324 2.442531 15.02	5.571062 0.897508 6.21
Age Cohort (Birth Year)	0.0040333 0.0002643 15.26	0.0040377 0.0003589 11.25	−0.0145757 0.0011072 −13.16	−0.0145323 0.001106 −13.14	−0.002739 0.0004015 −6.82
Education	0.04163 0.0019877 20.94	0.0547838 0.0027027 20.27	0.3568473 0.0083791 42.59	0.3556509 0.0083697 42.49	0.0944962 0.0030231 31.26
Female	0.011161 0.0079129 1.41 NS	−.1113578 0.0107252 −10.38	−.3301708 0.0332576 −9.93	−0.3303807 0.0332193 −9.95	−.1759319 0.0120041 −14.66
Inglehart Post-materialism Index		0.0978844 0.0049114 19.93	0.1620867 0.0149525 10.84	0.1607223 0.0149355 10.76	0.1411846 0.0054966 25.69
Human Development Index (HDI)	1.351605 0.4222431 3.20	−0.0489457 0.6996141 −0.07 NS	−1.201146 1.321263 −0.91 NS	4.448893 1.376817 3.23	−0.2104067 0.5266598 −0.4 NS
Social Class (Higher to Lower)	−0.0216878 0.0043688 −4.96	−0.1509517 0.0059199 −25.50	−0.7860395 0.0183759 −42.78	0.501082 0.1088422 4.60	−0.0251662 0.0066276 −3.80
Social Class × HDI				−1.719636 0.143336 −12.00
Chi−square	1,105.29	2,617.81	5,561.43	5,718.09	2,283.85
Sample Size	76,145	75,541	62,103	62,103	76,145

Source: World Values Survey Association (2015).

Notes: NS = not statistically significant at 5% level.

As expected, Inglehart post-material values do predict participation in each of the three post-material experiences (Table 1). In brief, values matter for what individuals decide to do in the world. Those with post-material values act on them by participating in post-material experiences.

The key result reported in Table 1 is as follows: Social class (higher to lower) negatively predicts all four measures of post-materialism at statistically significant levels. Working-class individuals farther down the social scale are less likely to either possess Inglehart post-material values or participate in such post-material experiences as creative and independent work, voluntary group membership, and political actions. The hypothesized post-materialism social class divide is thus statistically supported. Members of the working class participate less than others in the possession of post-material values and post-material experiences.

An interesting and unexpected result reported in Table 1 is the lack of statistical significance for the HDI in the case of all three post-material experiences as dependent variables, but a positive and significant HDI coefficient for Inglehart post-material values as a dependent variable. In other words, development results in more extensive post-material values but fails to create added opportunities for participation in post-material experiences. This finding hints at a limit on the capacity of human development growth across countries to create opportunities for post-material experiences even though such growth increases the extent of post-material values.

Adding an interaction variable equal to the product of social class and the HDI in Table 1 creative and independent work regression sheds light on why HDI growth fails to increase opportunities for this particular post-material experience. The interaction variable coefficient is negative, suggesting that as HDI increases across countries, participation in creative and independent work decreases at the lower end of the social class ranking. With increased human development, businesses are less likely to deliver creative and independent work to the working-class labour force at the bottom of the social class hierarchy. Economic advancement across countries on a capitalist foundation, probably with a more finely-honed division of labour, appears to actually shrink working-class opportunities for creative and independent work relative to the middle and upper classes. The social class gap for participation in creative and independent work thus actually increases moving up the human development ladder. Interaction variables between social class and the HDI were found not to be statistically significant and are not reported in the case of voluntary organization membership and political action as the dependent variables. The social class gap for these two experiences remains unchanged moving up the human development scale.

While not the focus of attention, interestingly education, a demographic control variable, significantly and positively predicts participation in each of the post-material experiences as well as the possession of Inglehart post-material values. Note also that being female negatively predicts participation in each of the three post-material experiences, perhaps because of the continuing predominance of home and family oriented traditional gender roles around the world today, and being young predicts the possession of post-material values, a basic hypothesis suggested by the Inglehart view of the silent revolution advancing post-material values through generational replacement. Surprisingly, being young also significantly predicts membership in voluntary organizations, but the opposite for participation in political action, something that is often viewed as a young person’s game. Being older and farther along in one’s lifetime work experience unsurprisingly predicts more creativity and independence at work.

To sum up, the hypothesized social class gap in the holding of Inglehart post-material values and participation in post-material experiences cannot be rejected on the basis of WVS evidence.

Post-material Experiences and Life Satisfaction

Once a threshold of material abundance is achieved, some in society may decide to pursue a path on which added financial wealth and the consumption of purchased goods declines in relative importance. On such a path, activities may be sought that bring feelings of satisfaction but require modest additions, if any, to purchases of consumer possessions and services and the income that funds them (Booth, 2018). To put it differently, some choose to move up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The goal becomes not an expansion of either material possessions or consumer experiences, but the seeking of activities largely or entirely outside the arena of marketplace transactions or focusing on creativity and independence in work as opposed to earning more money. The focus in life shifts from an economic materialism that emphasizes the pursuit of financial buying power and consumer purchases to the seeking of activities and goals with limited consumer purchase requirements.

Participation in post-material experiences would be especially puzzling if doing so failed to also increase individual life satisfaction, as already noted. To this issue we now turn. The WVS survey question used here to test for increased life satisfaction is one commonly employed to do so: ‘All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?’ (On a 1–10 scale, completely dissatisfied–completely satisfied). Those who choose to join voluntary organizations, experience above-average creativity and independence at work and engage in political action ought to be more satisfied with their life than those who do not do any of these. Otherwise, why would they make these choices?

The three key independent variables hypothesized to predict life satisfaction are the three post-material experiences: (a) membership in voluntary organizations, (b) creativity and independence at work and (c) participation in political actions. Because each of these variables is a measure of a different kind of post-materialist experience, they are included as independent predictors in three separate regression equations each with life satisfaction as the dependent variable. The other independent variables in each of the three equations (Table 2) include the usual demographic control variables (age cohort, education, and female gender), as well as the HDI, and social class (higher to lower).

The regression results in Table 2, equations 1 and 2, find that voluntary organization membership and creative and independent activity at work each positively and significantly predict life satisfaction. This result supports the hypothesis that an increase in two of the post-material experiences improves life satisfaction, a conclusion that finds support in other research (Delhey, 2009). However, the regression findings reported in Table 2, equation 3 surprisingly infer that participation in political action, with other variables held constant, negatively predicts life satisfaction at a statistically significant level. Why this is the case on the face of it seems puzzling and warrants a further look.

Political action is a voluntarily activity that many choose to participate in around the world. Why would doing so be associated with reduced life satisfaction? The specific reason for engaging in a particular political action may well explain why such participation is associated with a reduction in life satisfaction instead of an increase. For instance, if one participates in a political protest because of becoming unemployed due to an economic downturn caused by governmental austerity measures, the act of being unemployed reduces life satisfaction that may be partially but not fully offset by the act of political protest. This possibility suggests that job loss and political protest may well interact to reduce overall life satisfaction even though protesting might in and of itself give a boost to life satisfaction. A WVS question asks respondents about the extent to which they are worried about losing or not finding a job on a 1–4 scale (not at all, not much, a good deal, very much). A combination of job loss fears and engaging in political action in protest of the source of such fears could conceivably result in a net reduction in life satisfaction. This possibility is confirmed in equation 4, Table 2 where an interaction variable between political action and job loss fears (i.e., the product of the two variables) is included in the regression equation and possesses a coefficient that is negative and statistically significant, meaning that job-loss worries dampen the positive effect of participation in political action on life satisfaction. Note that the regression coefficient for political action by itself is positive and statistically significant, suggesting that participation in political action positively affects life satisfaction holding job-loss fears constant. In short, by itself, participation in political action is a plus for life satisfaction.

Table 2.

Mixed-effects Life Satisfaction Regressions: Post-material Experiences and Social Class (coefficient, SE, z)

Independent Variables Coefficients and Statistics	Life Satisfaction: Equation 1	Life Satisfaction: Equation 2	Life Satisfaction: Equation 3	Life Satisfaction Equation 4
Constant	−2.906804 1.18816 −2.45	−4.107272 1.262801 −3.25	−2.945978 1.187464 −2.48	−3.624002 1.221675 −2.97
Age Cohort	0.0046744 0.000494 9.46	0.0049297 0.0005377 9.17	0.0047113 0.0004911 9.59	0.0050805 0.0005129 9.91
Education	0.0238277 0.0037255 6.40	0.0123325 0.0041063 3.00	0.0284115 0.0037201 7.64	0.0315851 0.00383 8.25
Female	0.0778251 0.0148135 5.25	0.0663134 0.0161468 4.11	0.0692796 0.0147497 4.70	0.0599589 0.0151665 3.95
Membership in Voluntary Sports, Arts, Environmental and Humanitarian Organizations	0.0469839 0.005022 9.36
Creative Tasks and Independence at Work		0.0489608 0.0019397 25.24
Participation in Political Action: Petition, Boycott, Demonstration, Strikes, Protests			−0.0119653 0.0044701 −2.68	0.0633445 0.0118699 5.34
Political Action × Job Loss Fear				−0.0252881 0.0037243 −6.79
Human Development Index, 2013	2.190844 0.8628917 2.54	2.304532 0.8676455 2.66	2.211418 0.8717037 2.54	2.110539 0.8697446 2.43
Social Class (Higher to Lower)	−0.4172642 0.0081881 −50.96	−0.3631788 0.0090214 −40.26	−0.424078 0.0081123 −52.28	−0.4203779 0.0083351 −50.43
Wald Chi-square	3,627.55	3,325.29	3,572.31	3,435.60
Sample Size	80,532	66,293	81,533	76,893

Source: World Values Survey Association (2015).

Notes: NS = not statistically significant at 5% level.

The previous section suggests that post-material values and participation in post-material experiences are more prevalent at the upper reaches of the social class hierarchy, creating a values and experience disparity between social classes. Is this the case for life satisfaction as well? Based on the Table 2 regression results, social class (higher to lower) negatively and significantly predicts life satisfaction. Individuals farther down the social class hierarchy experience less life satisfaction than those farther up in all equations, other things equal. In brief, a life satisfaction gap exists between middle-class post-materialists and working-class materialists.

Living in a country at a more advanced stage of human development could well improve individual well-being and the HDI is included as a country-level variable in the life satisfaction regressions to test its predictive ability (Table 2). Indeed, HDI positively and significantly predicts life-satisfaction, meaning that living in a wealthier country with a higher average HDI matters for life satisfaction apart from an individual’s personal circumstances (Bonini, 2008; Diener & Tay, 2015). Country-level social well-being in general makes a positive difference for individual life satisfaction in particular. Note also that individual educational attainment is a positive and significant predictor of life satisfaction as well in all four equations. Because education opens up possibilities for not just material gain but also for enjoying life’s experiences more fully, that it positively predicts life satisfaction is unsurprising. Finally, both being young and female matter significantly and positively for life satisfaction, two interesting results (Bonini, 2008; Stavrova, 2019).

Two key findings in these pages so far are as follows: First, individuals farther down the social class hierarchy participate less than others in post-material experiences; second, these same individuals experience less life satisfaction than others. Are these two findings connected? Does occupying a lower position in the class hierarchy mean that less life satisfaction will be experienced because of less participation in post-material experiences? Including an interaction variable between each post-material experience and social class in life satisfaction regressions provides evidence for a yes answer to this question for two of the post-material experiences but not the third (Table 3). The interaction variable coefficient (equation 1) for organization membership multiplied by social class is positive and statistically significant, meaning that moving down the social class ladder, the marginal effect on life satisfaction derived from organization membership increases for those lucky enough to participate in such membership. In other words, individuals at the lower end of the social class hierarchy (i.e., the working class) experience a greater marginal hit to their life satisfaction from voluntary organization membership than those farther up the hierarchy (i.e., upper, upper-middle, and lower-middle class). Increased working-class member opportunities to join voluntary groups would be a plus for their life satisfaction.

Exactly the same analysis applies to creativity and independence at work (Table 3, equation 2). Moving down the class pecking order increases the marginal effect of participation in creativity and independence at work on life satisfaction. Recalling that those at the lower end of the class pecking order participate less in creativity and independence at work than those farther up (Table 1), extending the opportunity for such participation to the working-class (classes 4 and 5 in the WVS) would bolster their life satisfaction. Conversely, to the degree that business organizations confine such participation to managers and professionals but fail to extend it to the lower end of their bureaucratic rankings, they pass up an opportunity to increase work satisfaction for all their employees.

Note that the political action/social class interaction variable is statistically insignificant (Table 3, equation 3), meaning that life satisfaction from participation in political action is independent of social class structure, other things equal. At the margin, life satisfaction from increased participation in political action is no different from one social class to another, suggesting that there is a lack of disparity in opportunities for political action across classes. Anyone, independent of class, can sign a petition, participate in a boycott, attend a protest rally, or participate in a strike.

Table 3.

Mixed-effects Life Satisfaction Regressions: Post-material Experiences and Social Class with Interactions (coefficient, SE, z)

Independent Variables Coefficients and Statistics	Life Satisfaction: Equation 1	Life Satisfaction: Equation 2	Life Satisfaction: Equation 3
Constant	−2.511307 1.187588 −2.11	−3.304022 1.269311 −2.60	−3.617519 1.221781 −2.96
Age Cohort	0.0045443 0.0004939 9.20	0.0047306 0.0005385 8.78	0.0050791 0.0005129 9.90
Education	0.0230137 0.0037245 6.18	0.0131263 0.0041072 3.20	0.0315749 0.0038301 8.24
Female	0.0781168 0.0148056 5.28	0.0651719 0.0161434 4.04	0.0599888 0.0151667 3.96
Membership in Voluntary Sports, Arts, Environmental, and Humanitarian Organizations	−0.0782769 0.0143847 −5.44
Creative Tasks and Independence at Work		0.0124422 0.0062788 1.98
Participation in Political Action: Petition, Boycott, Demonstration, Strikes, Protests			0.0585406 0.0175302 3.34
Political Action × Job Loss Fear			−0.0254131 0.0037393 −6.80
Human Development Index, 2013	2.191347 0.8608 2.55	2.310545 0.8675282 2.66	2.110035 0.8697028 2.43
Social Class (Higher to lower)	−0.4579498 0.0092815 −49.34	−0.4884304 0.0223799 −21.82	−0.4213985 0.0087742 −48.03
Organization Member × Social Class	0.0405022 0.0043588 9.29
Creative Work × Social Class		0.0111762 0.0018276 6.12
Political Action × Social Class			0.0016423 0.0044101 0.37 NS
Wald Chi-Square	3,717.81	3,364.56	3,435.74
Sample Size	80,532	66,293	76,893

Source: World Values Survey Association (2015).

Notes: NS = not statistically significant at 5% level.

Conclusion

A divide between post-materialists and the lower reaches of the social class hierarchy exists globally at several levels according to the above statistical conclusions: (a) individuals with Inglehart post-material values participate in post-material experience activities more extensively than materialists; (b) individuals in the working class at the bottom end of the social class hierarchy participate in post-material experiences less extensively than those further up; (c) expressed life satisfaction increases with increased participation in post-material experiences; and (d) life satisfaction diminishes for individuals moving down the social class hierarchy and that decline occurs in part because of reduced participation in post-material experiences. For all three post-material experiences, participation fails to increase moving from one country to another up the human development scale even though Inglehart post-material values are positively predicted by the HDI. In short, development fails to expand opportunities for participation in post-material experiences even though post-material values become more extensive. Participation in creativity and independence at work for individuals at the lower end of the social class hierarchy in the working class actually decreases with development according to the significant negative coefficient on the HDI/social class interaction variable in Table 1. The finding that participation in post-material experiences increases life satisfaction is unsurprising. Otherwise, why would such participation occur in the first place? Given that participation in post-material experiences diminishes moving down the social class ladder, the finding that life satisfaction is less for working-class individuals at the lower end of that ladder is also unsurprising. For two post-material experiences, voluntary group membership and creativity and independence at work, the interaction variable with social class (higher to lower) possesses a significant positive sign (Table 3), suggesting an increase in such participation by individuals further down the social class order in the working class would increase life satisfaction more than for those farther up. Spreading such participation to the lower reaches of the social order would consequently be a plus for life satisfaction.

The irony of economic growth based on the global expansion of capitalist corporations is its stimulus to the growth of a middle-class post-materialism and the resulting dampening of a political commitment by post-materialists to the capitalist goal of further economic growth. Becoming a post-materialist means moving up the hierarchy of human needs to purposes and activities outside the realm of the market economy. The problem with such growth in recent years is the heavy concentration of the resulting income expansion at the upper end of the income distribution and, consequently, the upper-class end of the social class hierarchy (Alvaredo et al., 2017; OECD, 2011, 2017). This growth of income inequality decreases economic security from the middle class on down, dampening the formation of middle-class post-materialism and putting a dent in working-class materialist economic well-being. Despite the above-described experiential divide between post-materialists on the one hand and working-class materialists on the other, both have a political interest in reducing economic inequality associated with economic globalization. Whether this can lead to a successful post-materialist/working-class political coalition to fight economic inequality remains a challenging question. Certainly, the potential for working-class resentment of middle-class materialists and their gains in life satisfaction from the silent revolution adds fuel to the right-wing populist political fire now prevalent in the USA and Europe (Inglehart & Norris, 2016, 2017; Norris & Inglehart, 2019).

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Appendix

Table A3.

Human Development Index (HDI Distribution Across 59 Countries,^a 2013)

Country	Human Development Index	Cumulative Percentage
Rwanda	0.503	1.80
Yemen	0.507	2.97
Zimbabwe	0.516	4.74
Nigeria	0.519	6.80
Pakistan	0.538	8.22
Ghana	0.577	10.04
India	0.607	11.90
Morocco	0.645	13.31
Kyrgyzstan	0.658	15.08
Iraq	0.666	16.49
South Africa	0.675	20.64
Palestine	0.679	21.81
Egypt	0.680	23.61
Philippines	0.685	25.02
Uzbekistan	0.690	26.78
Libya	0.707	29.29
Tunisia	0.723	30.70
Jordon	0.727	32.12
Thailand	0.728	33.53
China	0.729	36.23
Equador	0.734	37.64
Columbia	0.735	39.42
Peru	0.736	40.85
Armenia	0.742	42.14
Algeria and Ukraine	0.745	45.31
Brazil	0.748	47.06
Lebanon	0.751	48.47
Azerbaijan	0.752	49.65
Mexico	0.756	52.00
Georgia	0.757	53.42
Turkey	0.771	55.30
Trinidad	0.779	56.48
Malaysia	0.785	58.01
Kazakhstan	0.788	59.77
Kuwait	0.795	61.30
Uruguay	0.797	62.48
Romania	0.800	64.25
Belarus and Russia	0.804	68.99
Bahrain	0.807	70.40
Argentina	0.820	71.62
Chile	0.828	72.79
Poland	0.850	73.93
Cyprus	0.853	75.10
Qatar	0.854	76.35
Estonia	0.862	78.15
Spain	0.875	79.55
Slovenia	0.885	80.81
South Korea	0.893	82.22
Japan	0.899	85.09
New Zealand	0.907	86.08
Sweden	0.912	87.50
Hong Kong	0.915	88.68
United States	0.916	91.30
Netherlands and Singapore	0.923	95.86
Germany	0.928	98.26
Australia	0.931	100.00

Source: United Nations Development Programme (2018).

Note: ^a Data for Taiwan is unavailable.

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