Definition: generalised trust is measured by the proportion of participants to the European Social Survey (ESS) who gave a score of at least 6 out of 10 to the question "Would you say that most people can generally be trusted, or that you can never be too careful in your contacts with people?" Respondents can give an answer on a scale from 0 ("you can never be too careful") to 10 ("most people are trustworthy"). This question was systematically asked in the ten biennial ESS surveys. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the survey for 2020 was postponed to 2021. The indicator is calculated by the FPB on the basis of data from the ESS. Since these data are based on surveys, a margin of uncertainty must be taken into account. The confidence intervals for these data are available on request.

Goal: generalised trust must not decrease.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include goal 16: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.”

International comparison: in Belgium generalised trust (51.5% in 2021) is clearly lower than in the Netherlands (72.4% in 2021), higher than in France (31.4% in 2021) and around the same level as in Germany (49.8% in 2018, no data for 2021). The level of the indicator in the different countries also remains relatively stable over the whole period. Given the subjective nature of this indicator, comparisons between countries should be interpreted with caution.

UN indicator: the selected indicator does not correspond to any monitoring indicator for the SDGs, but is related to goal 16. Trust is a fundamental element of social capital, important for peaceful societies (Ortiz-Ospina and Roser, 2018).

Sources

• General

  • SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: United Nations (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, document A/RES/70/1.

  • Indicators: United Nations (2017), Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, document A/RES/71/313.

  • UN Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

  • UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators website: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

• Specific

  • Ortiz-Ospina E. en Roser M. (2018), Trust, https://ourworldindata.org/trust (consulted on 24/09/2020).

More information is available in French and Dutch.