Patterns of Trust and Subjective Well-Being Across Europe: New Insights from Repeated Cross-Sectional Analyses Based on the European Social Survey 2002–2016

Abstract

This paper offers elaborate analyses regarding the effects of social-as well as institutional trust as parts of social capital on subjective well-being (SWB) by using data from the European Social Survey, including 36 countries and eight time-points between 2002 and 2016. We analyze (1) The development of trust and SWB on the aggregate level; (2) The effect of trust on SWB on the individual cross-sectional level; and (3) The longitudinal and crosssectional effect of trust on SWB on the aggregate level while considering control variables based on previous research. We observe a weak positive trend regarding social trust as well as SWB over time, but no significant change in institutional trust. However, trends are far from homogeneous across countries. In accordance to previous studies, we find a positive effect of social trust on SWB. This effect holds on the individual cross-sectional level for every participating country, but also on the longitudinal level. In view of institutional trust, we see a positive effect on SWB on the individual and aggregate cross-sectional level, but not over time. Thus, this study particularly sheds new light on this relation, indicating that it´s cross-sectional relation is due to confounding variables. Moreover, we observe no relation between economic growth and SWB after controlling for unemployment, but a positive effect of decreasing unemployment and inflation on SWB. Our data suggests that establishing an environment with high social trust across Europe would be rewarded with a happy society.

Political Trust Influences the Relationship Between Income and Life Satisfaction in Europe: Differential Associations With Trust at National, Community, and Individual Level

“…A substantially higher significance of political trust to wellbeing in transition countries as compared to economically more developed countries in Europe, as well as a reduced association in the Nordic countries have been reported earlier (29,30). One study reported that the relationship between personal life satisfaction and perceived quality of society was weaker in wealthier countries while the opposite was true in poorer countries (31).…”

“…One study reported that the relationship between personal life satisfaction and perceived quality of society was weaker in wealthier countries while the opposite was true in poorer countries ( 31 ). This could possibly be another indication of a relationship between political trust and satisfaction with one's personal life, which may indicate that the marginal effect of income is less in the high trust countries, where income is higher ( 29 ).…”

Individual social capital and subjective well-being in urban- and rural Austrian areas

“…Calvo et al 2012;Helliwell and Putnam 2004;Portela et al 2013), but also on the aggregate level between countries (e.g. Glatz and Eder 2019;Mikucka et al 2017). Previous studies obtained the same pattern for institutional trust, showing that institutional trust has a positive effect on subjective well-being (e.g.…”

When and Where Global meets Local: A multilevel analysis of determinants of social trust in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi

“…These are in general consistent with the findings elsewhere (Sønderskov & Dinesen, 2016). For example, multiple studies showed a robust relation between social trust and subjective well‐being (Glatz & Eder, 2020; Graafland & Lous, 2019; Puntscher et al., 2015). Overall, the findings presented above appear to reinforce the argument that tradition, norms, social participation, social networks, and globalization all are at play.…”