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The patriarchal family also muted towards a more balanced role one, due to women’s equal educational and em-
ployment opportunities. This shift in family structure and roles might be considered a revolutionary change in
European values but collected data’s support only the fact that family remains of utmost importance to more than
84% of European. Family itself remains a value, more important than friends, work, leisure time, politics and reli-
gion for Europeans though the meaning is nuanced. And this is an important argument to reconsider the cultural
individualistic orientation which seams to be divergent to the interior individual values.
Work
is an important value for more than 58% of the Europeans, the main characteristic being that its importance
is inversely correlated to wealth. The richer one is the less a virtue work appears to be. As Vista report states, East-
ern Europeans value work and money most while Iceland, Great Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands put work
low in their value’s scale. The economic crisis in Europe tough, changed the attitudes and values towards work,
especially in the wealthier countries. Based on EB79 survey, “
Work
has gained significant ground in Denmark
compared to EB69 (35%, +20 percentage points), Cyprus (44%, +16), Estonia (43%, +13), Ireland (39%, +11), Ro-
mania (37%, +11), Slovenia (33%, +11) and the United Kingdom (23%, +10). Conversely, the score for this item
has declined fairly sharply in Luxembourg (32%, -9), Malta (36%, -7) and Germany (36%, - 6)”. As well as work
is becoming more important than leisure time for an absolute and increasing majority of Europeans (54%) are
opposed to giving more importance to leisure than to work.
European social values polls
clearly en mass morally reject issues as: lying in your interest, cheating on tax returns
or avoiding a fare on public transportation. As it concerns trust in other people, Northern Countries show the
highest level of mutual trust whereas the most distrusting people live in Cyprus and Turkey, excepting Austria,
Luxembourg and Belgium having lower levels of trust than their economic performance suggests. The level of
wealth of trusting people might be the reason for this belief or the level of trust directly influences economic de-
velopment and government performance, as Francis Fukuyama observed? (Guiso, 2006).
Another worth to mention social aspect is the attitude towards immigrants who vary widely across Europe. There
are estimated more than 70 million immigrants across Europe, both from EU-27 countries and outside Eu-27 and
many Europeans used to believe that immigrants take jobs away from native people. The latest European values
barometer, in 2012 revealed a change in that respect, more than 49% of the Europeans, considering that immi-
grants contribute a lot to society in a positive way. This is the majority view in EU15 countries and is very much
less widespread in Eastern Europe.
Another issue related to immigration is the cultural tolerance, which is lower in Western Europe and Scandinavia
compared to the Balkan countries attitudes toward immigrants maintaining their own customs and traditions. As
for the ecologic hazard concerns, more than a half of the Europeans are convinced that the future looks slumber,
as ecological disaster cannot be prevented. However, when confronted with economic growth versus environ-
mental protection dilemma, and sampled according to a statistical debate rules, the results were rather different,
depending on the used expression. A large majority of 71% say that protecting the environment should be a prior-
ity for the country, even it affects economic growth with 15% opposing this idea, while a narrow majority (53%)
of Europeans agree that economic growth must be a priority, even if affects the environment compared to 42%
who disagreed.
In order to choose between equality or individual freedom, 66% of the Europeans consider that equality and
justice must be supported even if it means less individual freedom and also 84% of the Europeans think that the
justice system is insufficiently severe.
The economic values of Europeans regarding state intervention and free competition are in accord with the belief
that, for 64% of population state intervenes too much in individual’s activity and 65% support the view that free
competition is the best guarantee of prosperity.
Political
European’s views support democracy as the best form of government, especially in the EU15 countries,
fading towards Eastern Europe where support for technocrats or dictators is significant. The later seams to be in-
fluenced by historical inherited beliefs that the leaders must be dominant and authoritarian. A significant majority
of Europe citizens is also supporting the idea of establishing a technocracy.