Page 116 - IJPS-11-3

International Journal of
Population Studies Family policy from a global perspective

The WVS is the only dataset that includes a substantial coded all variables in a manner that aligns with societal
number of countries globally. The WVS comprises trends of modernization: higher values signify more
nationwide representative samples of adult populations extensive defamiliarization, increased secularization, more
in participating countries (WVS website: http://www. egalitarian gender roles, and greater acceptance of diverse
worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp). This global research family forms.
project explores people’s values and beliefs, their evolution
over time, and their social and political impacts. It places 3. Results
particular emphasis on cultural values, attitudes, and The variables of interest in the WVS pertain to the discussed
beliefs regarding gender, family, and religion. The dataset dimensions likely to influence the development and
spans seven cross-sectional waves, from the initial wave direction of family policy, which include familiarization
in 1981/1983 to Wave 7, conducted from 2017 to 2021 and defamiliarization, secularization and emancipative
(Inglehart et al., 2014). Subsequent waves are scheduled values, gender roles, and openness toward diverse family
every 5 years, with continuous territorial expansion. In forms. While these dimensions are distinguished for
total, 104 countries have participated in at least one of the analytical purposes, it is important to note that many
seven waves, although the maximum number of countries measures may overlap. Nevertheless, we differentiate these
participating in a specific year was 60 in Wave 6. We dimensions to provide a more systematic overview of the
rely on this dataset because it represents the sole source cultural underpinnings of policy instruments.
of individual-level data that encompass world regions
typically excluded from comparative policy research and 3.1. Familiarization and defamiliarization
cross-country comparisons in general. An additional Familialistic attitudes emphasize the importance of the
data source shedding light on societal conditions that family and advocate for the family to meet the care needs
may influence the scope and orientation of family policy of its members, thereby reinforcing the dependence of
measures is the UN overview of governments’ views and individuals in need of care on their families.
policies on the level of fertility rates in their countries. In
Here, we propose to examine the distribution of
the next section, we will compile relevant data from these two variables that can serve as indicators of a country’s
sources, with a specific focus on describing attitudes for
cross-country comparisons. orientation toward defamiliarization, i.e., the extent
to which the approval of familialistic attitudes has lost
Our descriptive analysis encompasses 89 countries that importance. First, we gauge the significance of the family
participated in the latest three waves of the WVS. For each in a given country based on the question: “For each of the
country, values are extracted from the most recent panel following, indicate how important it is in your life. Would
wave in which the country participated. In instances where you say it is very important, rather important, not very
data were unavailable for Wave 7 (2017 – 2020), values were important, not at all important?” The 1 (very important)
sourced from Wave 6 (2010 – 2014). In cases where both to 4 (not at all important)-point scale indicates the degree
of the most recent waves lacked data, values were derived of defamiliarization. The values have been standardized
from Wave 5 (2005 – 2009). We opted not to incorporate to express the mean for each country within the range
survey waves from more distant periods to ensure that data of 0 – 1. The data are not weighted. The positions of
across different countries correspond to reasonably similar countries on this variable are presented in Figure 1. The
historical periods. most remarkable outcome of this overview is the universal
Regrettably, data constraints prevent us from creating importance of family worldwide. In every single country,
single indices for the dimensions of interest. The availability the overwhelming majority of respondents consider family
of variables varies across survey waves and participating to be very important. Cross-country differences are small,
countries. Attempting to construct indices would result with scores ranging between 0.00 (Egypt) and 0.10 (Haiti)
in too many missing cases in the analysis. The exception on the standardized 0 – 1 defamiliarization scale. Within
is the dimension of secularization and emancipative this narrow range, Asian countries, with a few exceptions,
values, which aligns with a subset of the Inglehart–Welzel tend to be located at the lowest level of defamiliarization,
Cultural Map (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). This dimension while Latin American and European countries generally
has been systematically assessed over the survey waves, have somewhat higher scores on the right-hand side of the
with indices provided in the WVS database, which we graph.
gratefully utilize. In addition, we have employed individual The second indicator of defamiliarization reveals
variables as indicators of attitudinal patterns assumed to considerably more cross-country diversity, even though
be related to country-specific family policies. We have the number of countries is unfortunately smaller. The

Volume 11 Issue 3 (2025) 110 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.1993