Julia Adams and Ann Shola Orloff's insightful critical perspective in the first issue of this journal makes several important points about the relationship between modernization and gender equality. We agree with Adams and Orloff that—despite strong claims to the contrary (e.g., Young 2003)—modernization tends to be conducive to gender equality. And we also agree that the classic versions of modernization theory were inadequate. The basic insight that economic and technological development tends to bring coherent patterns of social and political change holds up well in the light of a large body of recent evidence; but previous models of modernization were mechanical and linear, and they omitted cultural factors that cannot be ignored. We join forces with Adams and Orloff in striving to develop a more adequate concept of modernization, recognizing that understanding ongoing processes of socioeconomic change is a long-term task that will need input from many perspectives.

The book Adams and Orloff discuss, Rising Tide (Inglehart and Norris 2003), reflects a revised version of modernization theory. It builds on previous work (Inglehart 1997), and a revised version of modernization theory is developed more fully in a more recent book (Inglehart and Welzel 2005). We will not recapitulate the full model here, but will focus on two main ways in which modernization theory needs revision:

1. The classic modernization models tend to be linear, assuming that the future will simply continue moving in the same direction as in the recent past. But in fact, the process of modernization can and does change direction, and with the rise of the knowledge society, social and political change have demonstrably started to move in a new direction.
2. Most previous models tend to neglect the fact that modernization is path dependent: A society's cultural heritage shapes its future trajectory, so that where it is at any given time reflects where it started. Thus, although industrialization tends to propel virtually any society in a roughly predictable direction, there are multiple paths to modernization.

Let us discuss each of these points in more detail.

Although the classic view of modernization developed by Karl Marx, Max Weber, and others was wrong on many points, the central insight—that socioeconomic development brings major social, cultural and political changes—is basically correct. This insight is confirmed by a massive body of new evidence based on survey data from more than 80 societies containing 85% of the world's population, collected from 1981 to 2002 by the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey. This evidence, examined in Rising Tide and Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy (Inglehart and Welzel 2005), demonstrates that the basic values and beliefs of the publics of economically advanced societies differ dramatically from those found in less developed societies—and that these values are changing in a predictable direction as socioeconomic development takes place. Changing values, in turn, have important consequences for the way societies function, promoting gender equality, good governance, and democracy.

Early versions of modernization theory were too simple. Socioeconomic development has a powerful impact on what people want and do, as Marx argued—but a society's cultural heritage continues to shape its prevailing beliefs and motivations, as Weber argued. Moreover, sociocultural change is not linear. Industrialization brings rationalization, secularization, and bureaucratization, but the rise of the knowledge society brings another set of changes that moves in a new direction, placing increasing emphasis on individual autonomy, self-expression, and free choice.

The first phase of modernization mobilized the masses, making modern democracy possible—along with fascism and communism. Although industrialization gives increasing room for democracy and gender equality, authoritarian and patriarchal norms remain widespread. The postindustrial phase of modernization produces increasingly powerful mass demands for democracy—and increasingly powerful pressures for gender equality.

The evidence from the Values Surveys demonstrates that the worldviews of the people of rich societies differ systematically from those of low-income societies across a wide range of political, social, and religious norms and beliefs. In order to focus on a limited number of important dimensions of cross-cultural variance, we carried out a factor analysis of each society's mean level on scores of variables, replicating the analysis in “Modernization, Cultural Change and the Persistence of Traditional Values” (Inglehart and Baker 2000).¹

The two most significant dimensions that emerge reflect, first, a polarization between traditional and secular-rational orientations toward authority and, second, a polarization between survival and self-expression values.

Agrarian societies tend to emphasize traditional values, while industrialized societies tend to emphasize secular-rational values. By traditional values we refer to orientations that are relatively authoritarian, place strong emphasis on religion, and emphasize male dominance in social life, respect for authority, and relatively low levels of tolerance for abortion and divorce and that have relatively high levels of national pride. Societies with secular-rational values emphasize the opposite characteristics.

The second major dimension of cross-cultural variation is linked with the transition from industrial society to postindustrial societies—which brings a polarization between survival and self-expression values. A central component of this dimension involves the polarization between materialist and postmaterialist values, reflecting a cultural shift that is emerging among generations who have grown up taking survival for granted. Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, tolerance of diversity, and rising demands for participation in decision making in economic and political life. These values also reflect mass polarization over whether “When jobs are scarce, men have more right to a job than women,” or whether “A university education is more important for a boy than a girl,” and whether “Men make better political leaders than women.” This emphasis on gender equality is part of a broader syndrome of tolerance of outgroups, including foreigners, gays, and lesbians. The shift from survival values to self-expression values also includes a shift in child-rearing values, from emphasis on hard work toward emphasis on imagination and tolerance as important values to teach a child. And it goes with a rising sense of subjective well-being that is conducive to an atmosphere of tolerance, trust, and political moderation. Finally, societies that rank high on self-expression values also tend to rank high on interpersonal trust. Growing emphasis on self-expression values produces a culture of trust and tolerance, in which people place a relatively high value on individual freedom and self-expression, and have activist political orientations.

The unprecedented wealth that has accumulated in advanced societies during the past generation means that an increasing share of the population has grown up taking survival for granted. Thus, priorities have shifted from an overwhelming emphasis on economic and physical security toward an increasing emphasis on subjective well-being, self-expression, and quality of life. Mass orientations have shifted from traditional toward secular-rational values, and from survival values toward self-expression values, in almost all advanced industrial societies that have experienced economic growth. But modernization is not linear. When a society has completed industrialization and starts becoming a knowledge society, it moves in a new direction.

Figure 1 shows a two-dimensional cultural map on which the value systems of 80 societies are depicted. This map was used in Rising Tide in order to illustrate the coherent way in which a society's values are linked with economic development—but also continue to reflect its historical and cultural heritage. The vertical dimension represents the Traditional/Secular-Rational dimension, and the horizontal dimension reflects the Survival/Self-expression values dimension. Both dimensions are strongly linked with economic development: The value systems of rich countries differ systematically from those of poor countries. A close examination of Figure 1 reveals the fact that Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the United States, and all other societies with a 1995 annual per capita GNP over $15,000 rank relatively high on both dimensions. Without exception, they fall in a zone near the upper right-hand corner.

On the other hand, every one of the societies with per capita GNPs below $2,000—again, without a single exception—falls into a cluster at the lower left of the map; India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, and Peru all fall into this economic zone. The remaining societies fall into intermediate cultural-economic zones. Economic development seems to move societies in a common direction, regardless of their cultural heritage.

But distinctive cultural zones persist. Different societies follow different trajectories even when they are subjected to the same forces of economic development, because each society's entire historical and cultural heritage—not just its economic level—helps shape how it develops. Samuel Huntington (1996) has emphasized the role of religion in shaping the world's eight major civilizations or “cultural zones”: Western Christianity, Orthodox, Islam, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, African, and Latin American. These zones were shaped by religious traditions that are still powerful today, despite the forces of modernization. And empirically, the 80 societies shown on Figure 1 fall into clusters that reflect these cultural zones fairly closely. The location of each society on this figure reflects each public's response to the questions asked in the Values Surveys, in representative national surveys carried out independently in each country. The lines around the clusters could be drawn in various ways: Another figure might emphasize the polarization between rich and poor countries, but here, the boundaries emphasize the existence of distinct cultural zones.

Thus, all of the historically Protestant European countries fall into a zone in the upper right-hand section of Figure 1, reflecting the fact that the people of all of these societies tend to emphasize both Secular-Rational and Self-expression values. Despite their wide geographic dispersion, all seven English-speaking societies fall into another cluster characterized by strong emphasis on Self-expression values, but lesser emphasis on Secular-Rational values. Britain—being both an English-speaking society and a historically Protestant European society—falls near the border between these two groups; the border could have been drawn to include it in either cultural zone.

All four of the Confucian-influenced societies (China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan) have relatively secular values, constituting a Confucian cultural zone, despite substantial differences in wealth. The Orthodox societies constitute another distinct cultural zone, as Huntington argued. And the 11 Latin American societies show relatively similar values. Similarly, the historically Roman Catholic societies (e.g., Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, and Austria) display relatively traditional values when compared with Confucian or ex-Communist societies with the same proportion of industrial workers. And virtually all of the historically Protestant societies (e.g., West Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland) rank higher on both the Traditional/Secular Rational dimension and the Survival/Self-expression dimension than do the historically Roman Catholic societies.

Religious traditions appear to have had an enduring impact on the contemporary value systems of the 80 societies. But a society's culture reflects its entire historical heritage, not just religion. A central historical event of the twentieth century was the rise and fall of a communist empire that once ruled one-third of the world's population. Communism left a clear imprint on the value systems of those who lived under it. East Germany remains culturally close to West Germany despite four decades of communist rule, but its value system has been drawn toward the communist zone. And although China is a member of the Confucian zone, it also falls within a broad communist-influenced zone. Similarly, Azerbaijan, though part of the Islamic cluster, also falls within the communist superzone that dominated it for decades. Changes in GNP and occupational structure have important influences on prevailing worldviews, but traditional cultural influences persist.

The ex-communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe all fall into the upper left-hand quadrant of our cultural map, ranking high on the Traditional/Secular-Rational dimension (toward the secular pole), but low on the Survival/Self-expression dimension (falling near the survival-oriented pole). A broken line encircles all of the societies that have experienced communist rule, and they form a reasonably coherent group. Although by no means the poorest countries in the world, the societies of Central and Eastern Europe have recently experienced the collapse of communism, shattering their economic, political, and social systems—and bringing a pervasive sense of insecurity. Thus, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, and Moldova rank lowest of any countries on earth on the Survival/Self-expression dimension—ranking lower than much poorer countries, such as India, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Pakistan. People who have experienced stable poverty throughout their lives tend to emphasize survival values; but those who have experienced the collapse of their social, economic, and political systems experience a sense of unpredictability and insecurity that leads them to emphasize Survival values even more heavily than those who are accustomed to an even lower standard of living.

Adams and Orloff note that we emphasize both the impact of modernization and the persistence of cultural influences, and see the two as incompatible: They ask, “How it is that “basic values” … could simultaneously move and not move in tandem with modernization” (2005, 172)? Initially, it would indeed seem that values must either be stable or changing, but such combinations of change and the persistence of traditional differences are inherent in path-dependent processes. Adams and Orloff probably wrote their article on computer keyboards using the traditional QWERTY format. Originally, this format was adopted to cope with the limitations of mechanical typewriters. The underlying technology has changed to swift electronic word processors that have no need for the relatively inefficient QWERTY format, but it persists because people have learned to use it: Where you start shapes where you are.

Let's take another look at Figure 1. If every society in the world were moving in the same direction at the same rate of speed on this map, their relative positions would remain unaltered: Cultural change is compatible with the persistence of traditional differences. Although all nations are not moving at exactly the same speed, this is roughly what has been happening. Figure 2 gives a concrete illustration showing how responses to a question about gender equality have been changing in four historically Protestant societies and four historically Roman Catholic societies. The Values Surveys asked each respondent whether he or she agreed that “When jobs are scarce, men have more right to a job than women do.” In 1990, the publics of Protestant societies were significantly more likely to disagree with this statement than were the publics of historically Catholic societies. By 2000, the publics of both types of societies had become substantially more likely to support gender equality—but they remained roughly the same distance apart. This example reflects a pervasive pattern in which basic values were changing, but traditional cross-cultural differences persisted over time.

Our revised version of modernization theory implies that economic development should tend to shift a society's value system from emphasis on Traditional and Survival values toward increasing emphasis on Secular-Rational and Self-expression values—in other words, from the southwest corner toward the northeast corner of Figure 1. Data from successive waves of the Values Surveys show that during the past 20 years, virtually every country with a per capita GNP equal to or higher than that of Portugal actually did show a positive net movement on this map—shifting either upward or toward the right, or both. Most low-income nations have shown relatively little cultural change—so the differences between the value systems of rich and poor countries have not disappeared; they have actually grown larger during the past two decades.

Adams and Orloff state that we “imply that gender equality, including its encoding in politics, will flow relatively unproblematically from modernization” (2005, 172). Our analysis is based on a combination of modernization forces and the persistence of each society's historical heritage. This means that gender equality will not flow unproblematically. We do indeed see modernization as a massive force that is difficult to resist: Once a society reaches the phase of the knowledge society, pressures for gender equality become increasingly costly to resist. Nevertheless, it is clear that some cultures are more resistant to gender equality than others—and it is not just a society's cultural heritage: Our analysis recognizes that a society's entire historical heritage, including social movements and leaders, helps shape it. Modernization is a powerful factor, but it is definitely not the only factor.

Adams and Orloff also state that Inglehart and Norris “extrapolate what they take to be a single ‘culture’ from variegated opinion data to a country or ‘civilization’ as a totality. On this basis we can capture neither the uneven development within and across states and societies, nor the ways that people struggle to link cultural signs and political practices differently within a given social space” (Adams and Orloff 2005, 173).

Most of the analyses in Rising Tide do indeed focus on cross-national comparisons, which are useful because they facilitate comparisons between societies at different stages of development. But these analyses are based on data from representative national surveys in each country, which can be broken down in any number of ways—and when one does so it is evident that, as Adams and Orloff claim, there is a great deal of variation within each society—as our analyses by age, gender, income, religion, and so on make clear. But there also are major differences between the outlooks prevailing in given nations—and between given groups of societies (or “civilizations”)—and in order to examine them, one must necessarily compare the prevailing values and beliefs of given societies as a whole.

Adams, Elisabeth Clemens, and Orloff (2005) argue forcefully that modernization is an important factor in the rise of gender equality—but that modernization itself needs to be reshaped. Despite approaching the subject from different perspectives, and despite some differences in interpretation, we strongly agree with them. Modernization does not take place without struggle, and the intervention of dedicated individuals and groups can accelerate or retard its pace and influence its direction. On the whole, however, we view modernization as having a positive impact on gender equality, particularly when a society reaches the postindustrial stage at which Self-expression values become widespread. It is not a matter of impersonal abstract factors. Economic development is not an impersonal force that automatically brings gender equality as soon as it reaches a given level. On the contrary, economic development seems to be conducive to greater gender equality only insofar as it gives rise to specific cultural changes—the most important of which is growing emphasis on Self-expression values. And these values are not disembodied forces: They exist within given individuals and are important only insofar as they help shape their choices and actions. The rise of a culture that emphasizes Self-expression values seems to have a remarkably powerful impact on the extent to which gender equality becomes a reality within given societies.

Throughout industrial society, and even more strongly in postindustrial societies, large intergenerational differences exist in attitudes toward gender equality. They reflect a “rising tide” of change toward greater societal acceptance of gender equality in particular, and human equality in general. Figure 3 illustrates the powerful impact that modernization has on gender equality, insofar as modernization gives rise to increasing emphasis on Self-expression values. The measure of gender equality used here is the Gender Empowerment Index developed by the United Nations Development Program (Human Development Report, 2000). This index reflects female representation in parliaments, management positions, and administrative functions, as well as gender equality in salaries.

To get the correct causal sequence, Figure 3 examines the impact of Self-expression values, as measured about 1995, on each society's score on the Gender Empowerment Index, as measured in 2000. As is evident from inspecting this figure, societies that place relatively strong emphasis on Self-expression values have a strong tendency to have high levels of objective gender equality; the correlation is a remarkably strong r = .85. In more detailed multivariate analysis, Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel (2005) demonstrate that this correlation seems to reflect a causal impact of cultural values on societal characteristics; the impact of Self-expression values on Gender Empowerment persists when one controls for a society's level of development, the structure of its workforce, its cultural heritage, and other factors.

Adams and Orloff raise important questions that we have attempted to answer, at least in part. We view them as allies in the ongoing search for a better understanding of how modernization functions, and how it helps shape the struggle for gender equality.