People in wealthier countries are more trusting, survey finds

Washington (dpa) – Three decades ago, political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that the more a country's people feel they can lean on each other, the better chance its businesses and economy have of thriving. Now, a newly published survey conducted in 25 countries suggests there is indeed at least a correlation between trust and economic prosperity. "Trust tends to be higher in the high-income countries surveyed than in the middle-income ones," reports the Pew Research Center, which carried out the polling.  Residents of Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Australia – the five highest scorers in the survey, countries with high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita – came out of it seemingly much more confident they can rely on each other than counterparts in less well-to-do Turkey, Kenya, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico, the five lowest-ranked. In Sweden, 83% of people said they mostly trust others, the highest percentage recorded. The lowest was in Turkey, where only 14% feel they can trust those around them. The US saw a near-even split, with 55% deeming themselves trusting and 44% not so much. "Within mostly high-income countries, we also see gaps in trust by education, income and age," Pew explained, with the better-off and those who spent longer in formal education more inclined to be trusting than those who left school earlier. Some countries have seen rising social trust in recent years, with Indonesia charting a 12 percentage point increase to 53% since Pew’s 2024 survey, leaving the giant Southeast Asian archipelago with the most trusting society outside the high-income nations surveyed. But in India, the world's most populous country, only 38% reported themselves as mostly trusting others – even if that was a seven point increase on last year. Germany and Sweden have also seen rises since the survey was last conducted in those countries in 2020, but in France the opposite proved to be the case with a drop of six percentage points recorded by Pew. The following information is not intended for publication dpa spr coh

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