Generalized social trust in Greece and its association with demographic and socioeconomic predictors

Social or generalized trust has been identified as one of the most important attitudinal elements of social capital and social cohesion, or even described as a social lubricant, which allows the wheels of society to run smoothly. An attempt is made in this article to measure levels of generalized trust in Greece and explore its association with various demographic and socio-economic factors. Data draw upon a specific survey conducted in 2007, where a sample of 822 inhabitants of Greece, men and women aged 18 and above, were interviewed. For the purposes of this article, the 'generalized trust' question was explored and associated with various demographic and socio-economic variables. Responses were analysed by Chi-square tests, where the relationship between control variables and the dependent one was explored. At the second stage of data analysis, a Logistic Regression Model was used. Statistical analysis of the generalized trust question revealed significant association of generalized social trust with educational level and marital status. More specifically, better-educated individuals tend to exhibit higher levels of trust and the same seems to apply for the divorced, widowed or those living in cohabitation. As far as age is concerned, results partly confirmed prior surveys, where generalized trust follows a U-curve pattern, with the youngest and the oldest individuals exhibiting higher levels of distrust. In particular, a simple Chi-square test reveals nuclear statistical significance between age and social trust, while a Logistic Regression Model excludes the former from the final equation. On the other hand, no significant effects were found for other control variables, i.e. gender, employment status and income.