Actually, it's a perfectly fair comparison. When people are worried if they'll make it through the year intact, they'll seek some form of certainty to help them

Actually, it's a perfectly fair comparison. When people are worried if they'll make it through the year intact, they'll seek some form of certainty to help them feel less vulnerable to ruin. China, India, and the USA have high inequality and few working programs for the poor. They also have high religiosity. Japan and Northern European countries, on the other hand, have low religiosity, and low income inequality, and no threat of war or famine. Korea is in transition, with still fairly high inequality (and also fairly high religiosity), although that's on the decline. You can of course stamp the "uncertainty" label on everyone if you want to play semantic games, but I'm not interested in that.