The impact of social policy on social trust: Decommodification and stratification according to Esping-Andersen’s welfare regime typology

Abstract

The main interest of this research consists of introducing an outcome spectrum in studying the welfare state-trust nexus. The latter can be obtained by decomposing Esping-Andersen’s welfare regime typology and directly evaluating the effects of decommodification and stratification on trust indexes. The expectation is formulated on the premise of the traditional crowding-out hypothesis which assumes that as the welfare state develops, trust levels decline. The hypothesis is checked based on a cross-sectional analysis for a set of 18 OECD countries while using a multi-level modeling as the main research method. The results obtained permit to reject the crowding-out hypothesis and infer that welfare states may enhance trust formation.