Within-Race Trust and the Trust Radius: Race Differences in Post-Apartheid South Africa

This study analyses unique national survey data for South Africa, on the extent to which adults trust others of their own, and of a different, race group. The country is particularly interesting partly because of its history of discrimination along racial lines and the continued salience of race as a socio-economic identifier in the post-apartheid period; and because there is considerable within-country cultural variation, spanning cultures that are more collectivist and more individualist. The data describe large race differences in the willingness to trust: Africans are significantly less trusting than others, both of their own race group and of others of a different race group, findings which are robust to controls for demographic, socio-economic and neighbourhood characteristics that are correlated with both race and trust. Although historical and contemporary experiences of discrimination and disadvantage typically are associated with lower levels of generalized trust, weak in-group trust is not expected, and particularly not in collectivist cultures. However, Africans also exhibit the smallest radius of trust, which is consistent with findings elsewhere, that racial prejudice and collectivism inhibit the extension of trust to others in society.