It has been argued that economic development and increased socioeconomic security tend to foster postmaterialistic attitudes including an increased concern for the environment. According to the postmaterialist hypothesis, individuals who grow up under favorable materialistic conditions tend to place a higher value on non-materialistic issues, not only during their adolescence but also for the rest of their lives. During a modernization process where people’s socioeconomic welfare increases with time, a generational effect is created where younger cohorts systematically demonstrate a higher concern for postmaterialistic values. In contrast to the postmaterialist hypothesis, a link between current income and postmaterialism has been suggested as an alternative explanation for the alleged spread of postmaterialistic attitudes. This would imply that the generational effect is substituted for a current income effect where societies with more affluent citizens tend to have a more postmaterialistic outlook. In this article, concern for the environment is taken as an example of a postmaterialistic outlook. Survey data about attitudes towards environmental issues in Estonia (2001) is used to show that no clear correlation can be found between either personal income or age and the adoption of a positive attitude towards environmental issues. This finding is taken as a starting point for a theoretical elaboration about the relationship between income, attitudes and the consumption of postmaterialistic goods. It is suggested that the important link might not be between attitudes and socioeconomic security but between income and spending on postmaterialistic goods. Changes in behavior are therefore dependent on differences in income elasticity between materialistic and postmaterialistic goods. The most important implication is that the observed changes in attitude in a postmaterialistic direction probably entail less consumption of materialistic goods in relative terms but not in absolute terms.