How does your country value the family?

All countries around the world rate the family as essential for life. Families of all kinds raise children. And families do lots more throughout life. The World Values Survey tells us more about eaech country’s values. How does your country value the family?

Here’s a good way to learn about this big project. Using the World Values Survey, Lars Trägårdh, history professor in Uppsala, starts with his own country, Sweden: The Swedish Theory of Love. He looks at “the distinctive paradox of Swedish individualism”.

Then he looks around the world . He uses this colorful diagram to help you find where you are:

Aside from the added colored groupings, the diagram uses the survey results to plot each country on a graph. The up and down scales are: “Traditional <> Rational-Secular Values” (on the Down-Up scale) and “Survival <> Self-Expression Values” (on the Left-Right scale).

So countries towards the bottom-left (eg Tunisia or Qatar) are overall found to hold the most traditional values and they focus on survival. Countries at top-right are overall found to hold the most rational-secular values and they most value on self-expression (eg the Nordic countries).