Inglehart-Welzel world cultural map 2023

One if the most interesting maps that exists is the one from World Values Survey called Inglehart-Welzel world cultural map measuring 1) Traditional values versus Secular-rational values and 2) Survival values versus Self-expression values. (see map below - if you want to see the changes from 1981 to 2015, click this link). World Values Survey (WVS) is an international research program devoted to the scientific and academic study of social, political, economic, religious and cultural values of people in the world. WVS is at the moment the largest non-commercial cross-national empirical time-series investigation of human beliefs and values ever executed.

This cultural map has so many interesting implications in order to understand how integration in a western society can go wrong, for example within a country like Sweden.

Sweden is extreme when it comes to Self-expression values and Secular-rational values. This means that in Sweden we believe that God and Religion is not that important, abortion and homosexuality is justifiable, respect for authority is limited, quality of life is emphasized and we trust people. As a postindustrial society with high level of existential security and individual autonomy, we believe in tolerance, trust, an emphasis on subjective well-being, civic activism and self-expression. During the past thirty years, many people within the postindustrial society have grown up under conditions in which one can take survival for granted creating the opportunity of an emergence of growing emphasis on environmental protection, the women´s movement, and rising demands for participation in decision making in economic and political life... this is completely different from the values within countries like Afghanistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Turkey, Syria, Iraq...

That is why politicians in Sweden should focus on:

- understand the differences in values between people from different countries (see Cultural Map)

- make sure that every immigrant to Sweden understands and get introduced to the Swedish value system

- figure out a way of living together where Swedish law and Swedish values are the foundation at the same time making sure various different cultural values also are respected

For further insights related to the Swedish development, I recommend this clip where Bi Puranen explains the latest trends - "Bi Puranen berättar om kulturkartan 2020": 

Read my earlier post "på svenska" on this topic here...