Regional Cultural Differences Within European Countries: Evidence from Multi-Country Surveys

The purpose of this study is to investigate the patterns of regional cultural differences within European countries. This study extends our previous work (Kaasa et al. 2013) that used data from the European Social Survey (ESS), by using more recent data and combining the ESS and the European Values Study (EVS) as data sources. We aim to study how much attention should be paid to within-country differences and how they differ across countries. The indicators of cultural dimensions were created using confirmatory factor analysis based on the initial indicators selected relying on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. The extent and character of within-country cultural differences were examined. Our results reveal a wide diversity of regional cultural variability among the observed countries. We identified countries where within-country cultural variability is larger (Spain, Portugal, France) and smaller (Finland, Sweden, Norway) than cross-national variability. Also, in many countries a more detailed regional division (more and smaller regions) brought out larger differences, although this cannot be taken as a rule. Patterns along regions differ across cultural dimensions, making grouping regions difficult. Studying regional cultural differences within countries is important. The extent of the optimal depth of regional division applied depends on the particular country, its regional cultural variability, and the needs and aims of the researcher.