Generativity and social value orientation between rural and urban societies

Generativity, concern and commitment for the next generation, is one important factor for sustainable development of a society, since intergenerational sustainability is claimed to have been compromised over the last decades. Generativity emerges through both prosocial and proself behaviors characterized by social preference, and is now hypothesized to decrease in some modern societies called "generativity crisis." However, little is known about how ongoing modernization of competitive societies, i.e., capitalism, and social preferences affect generativity. To this end, we conduct field experiments of the social value orientation and the generative behavior checklist in the two fields of Nepalese societies: (1) urban and (2) rural areas. The analysis finds that prosociality and the rural-specific effect are the two major factors that positively affect people’s generativity, while a larger proportion of prosocial people are found in rural areas than in urban areas. Overall, these results suggest that generativity shall decrease with further modernization of societies that changes the economic culture and people’s orientation to be less concerned for future generation.