The influence of loneliness on perceived social belonging and trust beliefs – longitudinal evidence from the Netherlands.

Abstract

While social pluralism and diversity are important characteristics of functioning democracies, civil society and democratic institutions require citizens to feel as an integral part of society in order to function. This stems from a general sense of belonging as well as a mutual understanding of citizens that institutions and other members of society are trustworthy. While objective aspects of social embeddedness, i.e. organizational membership and inter-relational contact, are established predictors of these outcomes, perceived loneliness is rarely investigated. This study investigates whether changes in loneliness reduce levels of perceived belonging and political and interpersonal trust believes. By analysing 12 waves of panel data from the Netherlands gathered between 2008 and 2020 (n= 41,508), the analysis shows that intra-personal variation in loneliness predicts citizen`s sense of belonging and interpersonal trust believes. Regarding political trust, the relationship cannot be found with panel fixed effect.