Economic inequality and General Trust The relation between economic inequality and general trust in contemporary Europe

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I analyse the relationship between economic inequality and general trust in Europe. I differentiated between inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity and tested whether these concepts lowered general trust. After combining data from Eurostat and the European Social Survey , resulting in a dataset of 69820 native respondents from 9 European countries, I conducted a multilevel analysis. The outcomes of the analysis reveal that both forms of inequality do not significantly lower general trust. The effect of inequality of outcomes on general trust, however has gotten worse over the last decade in Europe.