Last Updated on October 10, 2026 by Karl Thompson
Cross-national means across two or more countries. Cross-national comparisons involve researching a specific social institution, trend or phenomenon in two or more countries using the same research methods, with the intention of comparing how this institution, trend or phenomenon manifests in different socio-cultural settings.
Researchers might choose to focus on broad topics such as the education system, or a specific trend such as the suicide rate. They may use analysis of already existing secondary data, such as official statistics, to do this, or conduct their own original primary research.
The aim may be to seek new explanations for similarities or differences, or to gain a deeper understanding of social reality in different national contexts.
Cross-national comparison is a version of what positivists call the comparative method: comparing societies to find correlations and test hypotheses, as a substitute for experiments that would be impossible or unethical to carry out on whole societies. See Scientific Quantitative Methodology in Sociology for more on the comparative method, and the Research Methods hub for the rest of the module.
Examples of Cross-National Comparisons
Durkheim’s classic 1897 study of Suicide
Emile Durkheim wanted to find out whether the very personal act of suicide was shaped by social factors.
He used official statistics on a range of factors, such as the religion of a country (Protestantism or Catholicism), the rapidity of economic growth and the divorce rate (among other things), and then correlated these with the suicide rate.
He famously found that countries with lower rates of social integration and social regulation have higher suicide rates.
(NB this is a summary of one aspect of the study, it’s a bit more complex than this!)
He was famously criticised for many reasons, one of which was his failure to take account of the statistics lacking validity. Interpretivists such as Atkinson and Douglas argued that suicide statistics are socially constructed by the coroners and families who decide whether a death counts as suicide. This is a problem that applies to cross-national research in general: if different countries record the same thing in different ways, the comparison may tell you more about the recording than the behaviour.
Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) The Spirit Level
In The Spirit Level (first published 2009), Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett looked at income inequality (the gap between the highest and lowest earners) in several different developed countries.
They found that a higher level of inequality was associated with all sorts of health and social problems, such as:
- Higher rates of imprisonment
- Higher levels of obesity
- Higher rates of mental illness
- More teenage pregnancies
- Lower levels of trust
A 2014 study on immigration and gender equality
Röder and Mühlau (2014) noted that there is considerable cross-national variation in attitudes towards gender equality. They were interested in exploring what happens to the attitudes of immigrants who move from a less gender-egalitarian culture to one in which gender equality is more actively promoted.
They started off with the following hypothesis:
(a) Second-generation immigrants have a more egalitarian gender ideology than the first generation, and (b) the gender relations of the origin country exert less influence on the gender attitudes of second-generation immigrants than of first-generation immigrants.
To test the hypothesis, the authors used data from the European Social Survey, which has been carried out every two years since 2002 by face-to-face interview in several European countries.
They defined “second-generation immigrant” as anyone who was born in the country in which they presently lived but had at least one parent who was born abroad.
To measure gender-egalitarian attitudes, they relied on two questions from the questionnaire, both Likert scale questions, consisting of statements which people had to agree or disagree with on a 1 to 5 scale:
- “When jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women”
- “A woman should be prepared to cut down on her paid work for the sake of her family”
To measure gender equality in the origin country, the researchers relied on indicators such as female representation in parliament and professional jobs, and income differences between men and women.
The hypothesis was broadly supported. Immigrants from countries with very unequal gender relations were less supportive of gender equality than the majority population, but the gap narrowed the longer they had lived in their new country, and narrowed further across generations.
The Strengths of Cross-National Studies
They help us overcome ethnocentric assumptions. Cross-national research challenges assumptions we might make about life in other countries, and about our own. Something that seems “natural” in Britain may turn out to be unusual when compared with other countries.
They allow hypotheses to be tested across different social settings. If a relationship (such as between inequality and imprisonment) holds in many countries, that is stronger evidence than a finding from one country alone. For positivists, this is the closest sociology can get to a laboratory experiment on whole societies.
Existing data makes them practical. Where governments and international organisations already collect comparable official statistics, researchers can make comparisons without travelling or collecting their own data.
The Limitations of Cross-National Studies
Cross-national studies tend to be very large in scope, and so can require considerable funding to carry out. Securing funding can be a problem: an agency based in one country may be reluctant to fund research that takes place in multiple countries, so sources of funding are likely to be limited to international agencies, rather than national governments.
Data collected from official government sources (official statistics) may not be comparable. The categories used and the methods of collecting the data may differ from country to country.
Data will have to be translated, and there is a risk of the translation being insensitive to specific national and cultural contexts. A question that means one thing in English may carry a different meaning, or none at all, in another language.
Try it yourself: a cross-national comparison research task
The best way to understand both the strengths and the limitations of cross-national comparisons is to do one. This task is designed to get you thinking like a positivist: using existing data to find patterns between countries, and then coming up with theories to explain them.
Choose one of the five questions below and use the data source suggested.
- Why are some countries richer than others? Use the World Bank’s list of countries ranked by GNI per capita (gross national income per person).
- Why do some countries have higher levels of gender equality? Use the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025.
- Why do some countries perform better in PISA tests? PISA is the OECD’s international test of 15-year-olds in maths, reading and science. Use the most recent results published by the OECD, such as PISA 2022 Results (Volume I), and compare the top and bottom of the league tables.
- Why are some countries happier than others? Use the World Happiness Report (the 2026 edition was published in March 2026).
- Why are some countries more peaceful than others? Use the Global Peace Index 2026, which ranks 163 countries and territories on 23 indicators. Iceland is ranked the most peaceful country in the world. Why might that be? And why are some countries much more prone to conflict than others?
How to do it (works best for questions 1 and 2):
- Look at the top 10, middle 10 and bottom 10 countries in the ranking.
- Exclude outliers that would distort the comparison, such as very small island states.
- Look for characteristics the countries in each group share. Are they in the same region? Do they have similar levels of wealth, similar political systems, a similar history, or a similar dominant religion?
- Come up with a theory to explain why some countries rank higher than others.
For questions 3 to 5, focus on developing theories to explain the differences between the countries at the top and bottom.
Then evaluate what you did. How valid were the statistics you used? Did every country measure things in the same way? What could the data not tell you about why the countries differ? Your answers are the strengths and limitations of cross-national comparisons, which you can use in the exam.
Cross-national comparisons in the exam
Cross-national comparison is not a method in its own right on the AQA specification. It is a way of using other methods, most often official statistics. It is most useful in the exam as:
- an example of a practical advantage of official statistics (they make comparisons between countries possible without visiting them)
- an example of the comparative method when discussing positivism and Durkheim
- a source of validity problems when evaluating official statistics (different countries define and record things differently)
Signposting and Related Posts
This post has been written primarily for students studying research methods as part of the AQA’s A-level sociology course.
Cross-national comparisons usually rely on official statistics, so read that post next if you haven’t already.
For the positivist thinking behind the comparative method, see Positivism and Interpretivism in Sociology.
Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com
Sources
Röder, A. and Mühlau, P. (2014) “Are They Acculturating? Europe’s Immigrants and Gender Egalitarianism”, Social Forces, 92(3), pp. 899–928.
Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2009) The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. London: Allen Lane.
Institute for Economics and Peace (2026) Global Peace Index 2026