The Rise of the Cultural Omnivore 1964-2004

In their seminal work Peterson and Kern (1996) reported that the system of cultural stratification in the USA was characterized by omnivorous cultural consumers in 1982, a pattern that grew stronger in 1992. Subsequent research has shown that an omnivorous consumer also existed in many other countries. In this paper we exploit a unique series of surveys on cultural participation collected in Denmark in the period 1964-2004 (1964, 1975, 1987, 1993, 1998, and 2004) to map the historical development of the omnivorous cultural consumer. In addition, we analyze how a range of social stratification variables affects the likelihood of belonging to this group relative to other cultural consumption groups. We report two major findings. First, we find that the relative size of the omnivore group in the Danish population has grown from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s. Second, we find that social class, income, and education are strong predictors of cultural omnivorousness but furthermore that the strength of these social stratification variables has been declining over the past 40 years.