Cultural Gaps Widen with Modernization

Does modernization—economic growth, technological advancement, globalization, increased education, and urbanization—reduce cultural differences? Conventional wisdom suggests that as nations get richer and more educated, a globalized, modern culture emerges featuring low birth rates, high divorce rates, and an overall focus on the individual. Thomas Talhelm tests this hypothesis using the World Values Survey, which has collected data in a broad range of countries since 1981. Notably, variation in values between countries in the World Values Survey has grown from 1981–2017. Talhelm confirms this trend with census data from rice- and wheat-growing regions in China. Because rice farming required more labor and coordination than wheat farming, rice-growing regions were traditionally more collectivistic. As modernization made China far richer and relegated agriculture to a niche occupation, one might expect this difference in collectivism between rice- and wheat-growing regions to disappear. On the contrary, census data on divorce rates, people living alone, and three-generation households suggests that the correlation between rice farming and collectivism has actually increased since the 1980s. Families in traditionally rice-growing regions are more likely to live in large, multigenerational households and less likely to live alone than their counterparts in wheat-growing regions. According to Talhelm, modernization, rather than an external force that pushes all cultures toward the same outcome, might be better understood as an influx of resources that allows people to more fully express their cultural values and beliefs, akin to water poured on a seed.