How durable are social norms? Immigrant trust and generosity in 132 countries

John F. Helliwell, Shun Wang*, Jinwen Xu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper estimates the global prevalence of social trust and generosity among immigrants. We combine individual and national level data from immigrants and nativeborn respondents in more than 130 countries, using seven waves of the Gallup World Poll (2005–2012). We find that migrants tend to make social trust assessments that mainly reflect conditions in the country where they now live, but they also reveal a significant influence from their countries of origin. The latter effect is one-third as important as the effect of local conditions. We also find that the altruistic behavior of migrants, as measured by the frequency of their donations in their new countries, is strongly determined by social norms in their new countries, while also retaining some effect of the levels of generosity found in their birth countries. To show that the durability of social norms is not simply due to a failure to recognize new circumstances, we demonstrate that there are no footprint effects for immigrants’ confidence in political institutions. Taken together, these findings support the notion that social norms are deeply rooted in long-standing cultures, yet are nonetheless subject to adaptation when there are major changes in the surrounding circumstances and environment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)201-219
Number of pages19
JournalSocial Indicators Research
Volume128
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Footprint effect
  • Generosity
  • Immigration
  • Institutional trust
  • Social norms
  • Social trust

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