An Empirical Note on Religiosity and Social Trust using German Survey Data

In this empirical research note, we use a large scale German household survey data set to analyze the correlation between religiosity and social trust. Religiosity takes into account religious affiliations (Catholic, Protestant, other Christian, Muslim/Islam, other religions, none) and the frequency of church attendance. In order to measure social trust, we use three outcome variables (willingness to take risks in trusting strangers, frequency of lending personnel belongings or money to friends). Our main findings in multivariate linear and ordered Probit regressions are: (1) Muslims tend to be less trusting towards strangers and they less often lend personnel belongings but not money to friends than other religious groups and non affiliated persons. (2) Catholics and Protestants do not differ significantly from each other and tend to be more trusting towards strangers but not towards friends than other religious groups and non affiliated persons. (3) Church attendance seems to play only a minor role in the context our social trust measures.