World Values Survey (Canada) Immigrant and native born respondent comparisons
5. Trust
A variety of analysts have consistently demonstrated that high levels of interpersonal trust make a significant contribution to the health of democracies (Almond and Verba, 1963; Putnam, 1993). Trust and norms of reciprocity promote civic engagement while in turn shaping how individuals participate in democratic life. An exploration of the levels of trust that Canadian born, earlier immigrant and recent immigrant respondents provides some insight into how well integrated individuals are into Canadian democracy.
Are immigrants more or less trustful than native born Canadians? The WVS asked all respondents: "Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all?" Eight groups are considered: your family, people you know personally, your neighbourhood, people you meet for the first time, Canadian people in general, French Canadians, recent immigrants, and Americans. Results are summarized in Table 5-1 through Table 5-8.
Question: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all your family?
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
Trust completely | 83.8% | 86.3% | 91.5% |
Trust somewhat | 14.3% | 13.4% | 7.8% |
Do not trust very much | 1.3% | 0.3% | 0.7% |
Do not trust at all | 0.6% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,768) | (n=299) | (n=566) |
N = 2,633
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
Question: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all people you know personally?
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
Trust completely | 48.8% | 41.3% | 29.9% |
Trust somewhat | 48.1% | 52.3% | 63.7% |
Do not trust very much | 2.3% | 5.7% | 6.2% |
Do not trust at all | 0.7% | 0.7% | 0.2% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,772) | (n=298) | (n=565) |
N = 2,635
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
Question: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all your neighbourhood?
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
Trust completely | 23.2% | 16.6% | 10.4% |
Trust somewhat | 62.0% | 68.9% | 67.5% |
Do not trust very much | 11.7% | 13.5% | 18.9% |
Do not trust at all | 3.1% | 1.0% | 3.2% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,760) | (n=289) | (n=560) |
N = 2,609
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
Question: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all Canadian people in general?
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
Trust completely | 6.6% | 8.3% | 8.6% |
Trust somewhat | 78.5% | 79.9% | 75.1% |
Do not trust very much | 13.0% | 10.4% | 14.9% |
Do not trust at all | 1.9% | 1.4% | 1.4% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,747) | (n=288) | (n=558) |
N = 2,593
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
Question: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all French Canadians?
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
Trust completely | 6.6% | 6.2% | 5.3% |
Trust somewhat | 78.1% | 79.1% | 68.4% |
Do not trust very much | 12.5% | 12.8% | 23.7% |
Do not trust at all | 2.8% | 1.9% | 2.6% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,254) | (n=211) | (n=266) |
N = 1,731
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
Question: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all recent immigrants?
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
Trust completely | 2.7% | 3.7% | 3.7% |
Trust somewhat | 62.9% | 71.1% | 62.4% |
Do not trust very much | 24.6% | 20.5% | 30.9% |
Do not trust at all | 9.8% | 4.8% | 3.0% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,679) | (n=273) | (n=540) |
N = 2,492
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
Question: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all Americans?
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
Trust completely | 2.7% | 4.3% | 2.9% |
Trust somewhat | 61.8% | 64.6% | 56.2% |
Do not trust very much | 24.1% | 22.9% | 30.3% |
Do not trust at all | 11.4% | 8.2% | 10.6% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,723) | (n=280) | (n=521) |
N = 2,524
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
Question: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all people you meet for the first time?
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
Trust completely | 1.7% | 1.0% | 1.3% |
Trust somewhat | 51.3% | 45.8% | 32.3% |
Do not trust very much | 34.4% | 39.6% | 50.0% |
Do not trust at all | 12.6% | 13.5% | 16.4% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,749) | (n=288) | (n=560) |
N = 2,597
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
The data show (Figure 5-1) that there is, in effect, a hierarchy of interpersonal trust. Respondents are the most trustful of their families, and least trustful of people they meet for the first time.
Figure 5-1: Levels of trust
Question: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all?
Text version: Levels of trust
2006 Strongly Agree | Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants |
---|---|---|---|
Family | 98.1% | 99.7% | 99.3% |
People you know personally |
96.9% | 93.6% | 93.6% |
Neighbourhood | 85.2% | 85.5% | 77.9% |
Canadians | 85.1% | 88.2% | 83.7% |
Recent Immigrants |
65.6% | 74.8% | 66.1% |
Americans | 64.5% | 68.9% | 59.1% |
People you meet for first time |
53.0% | 46.8% | 33.6% |
Notes: Results reported are for those responding "trust completely" or "trust somewhat".
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
Uslaner and Conley (2003) suggest that immigrants tend to engage primarily, or even solely, with their own ethnic communities, a pattern of associational life that leads to "unsocial" capital (Levi, 1996). The WVS evidence provides some initial support for that line of speculation. Among recent immigrants, 75.1 percent trust "completely" or "somewhat" members of their own ethnic groups compared to 66.9 percent who trust "completely" or "somewhat" members of other ethnic groups. The same pattern holds for people they meet for the first time. Recent immigrants are almost 20 percent less likely than Canadian born respondents and 10 percent less likely than earlier immigrants to trust people they know personally "completely" (p<.1). (Table 5-2).
Social capital theory makes a distinction between interpersonal and generalized trust. Interpersonal trust is generated by close, face-to-face contact with others, while generalized trust refers to the trust that individuals have for other abstract groups or society as a whole (Stolle, 1998; Sullivan and Transue, 1999). Generalized trust, in particular, forms the "social lubricant" that promotes broad social interaction and cooperation.
Exactly how these two dimensions of trust are related to each other is a matter of some debate. Granovetter argues that strong interpersonal networks may actually act as a barrier to the creation of "weak ties" (Granovetter, 1973, 1983). These weak ties are crucial to the building of generalized trust and social capital because they enable individuals to interact with those outside their regular social circles. Indeed, it is entirely possible that if the bonds of the interpersonal group are too strong and hierarchical, they may inhibit the formation of generalized trust (Putnam, 2000).
The results of a factor analysis of these items (Table 5-9) indicate that responses to the trust questions do tend to cluster along two dimensions. The first cluster includes orientations towards larger groups including: Canadian people in general, recent immigrants, Americans and people you meet for the first time. The second cluster includes these groups with which respondents have more regular and intimate contacts: Trust in the family, the neighbourhood, and in people who are known personally.
Factor Loading | ||
---|---|---|
Family | -.046 | .711 |
People you know personally | .180 | .695 |
Neighbourhood | .272 | .706 |
Canadians | .755 | .170 |
Recent immigrants | .831 | .047 |
Americans | .808 | .052 |
People you meet for the first time | .654 | .314 |
Eigenvalue | 2.450 | 1.619 |
Percentage of variance explained | 35.0% | 23.1% |
Notes: Principle Components Extraction Procedure with Varimax Rotation; Factor analysis conducted using only cases in the main WVS sample
Source: 2006 World Values Survey and 2001 Census
N=1,941
From these two factors, two indices—an interpersonal trust indexFootnote 8 and a generalized trust indexFootnote 9 —are created to allow us to explore variations in patterns of trust among the three groups.
Over 70 percent of all Canadians, both immigrants and Canadian born respondents, exhibit high levels of interpersonal trust (Table 5-10). Over 80 percent of all Canadians have at least medium levelsFootnote 10 of generalized trust (Table 5-11). The data does show that recent immigrants are somewhat less likely to have high levels of interpersonalFootnote 11 trust than earlier immigrants and Canadian born respondents, and the difference is statistically significant (p<.1). For generalized trust, there is no statistically significant difference between the three groups.
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
High (7-9) | 79.8% | 77.6% | 73.5% |
Medium (4-6) | 19.3% | 22.4% | 26.1% |
Low (0-3) | 0.9% | 0.0% | 0.4% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,746) | (n=286) | (n=559) |
Notes: The interpersonal trust index comes from an additive index of responses to three questions: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all? Your family, people you know personally, and your neighbourhood. Responses of “trust completely” = 3. Responses of “do not trust at all” = 0. The resulting values range between 0 and 9. Cronbach’s alpha = .514.
N = 2,591
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
Canadian Born | Earlier Immigrants | Recent Immigrants | |
---|---|---|---|
High (9-12) | 9.6% | 7.3% | 7.9% |
Medium (4-8) | 84.6% | 85.8% | 86.8% |
Low (0-3) | 5.8% | 6.9% | 5.3% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
(n=1,647) | (n=260) | (n=509) |
Notes: The generalized trust index comes from an additive index of responses to four questions: Could you tell me for each whether you trust people from this group completely, somewhat, not very much or not at all? Canadians, recent immigrants, Americans, and people you meet for the first time. Responses of “trust completely” = 3. Responses of “do not trust at all” = 0. The resulting values range between 0 and 12. Cronbach’s alpha = .758.
N = 2,416
Source: 2006 World Values Survey
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