IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp10585.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender Differences in the Link between Income and Trust Levels: Evidence from Longitudinal Data

Author

Listed:
  • Bilson, Jessica R.

    (University of Western Australia)

  • Jetter, Michael

    (University of Western Australia)

  • Kristoffersen, Ingebjørg

    (University of Western Australia)

Abstract

We investigate the effect of individual income on interpersonal trust levels, using longitudinal survey data for 22,219 Australians over the 2005-2014 period. Our results produce two key insights. First, we demonstrate the importance of accounting for individual-level fixed effects, as the income coefficient goes from positive and statistically significant in a pooled regression to negative and statistically significant in a fixed effects panel model. Second, this negative effect of income on trust holds only for men, and not for women. This result appears to be concentrated among males who are young and moving from no income to positive income, but employment status is not the driving factor. Further, we explore a potential channel via psychological characteristics and find evidence of men reporting greater levels of neuroticism and fretfulness following an increase in income but, again, women do not. In turn, neuroticism and fretfulness are robust predictors of decreased trust levels; these additional findings are based on cross-sectional variation only, since both these variables are available in only one of the survey waves to date.

Suggested Citation

  • Bilson, Jessica R. & Jetter, Michael & Kristoffersen, Ingebjørg, 2017. "Gender Differences in the Link between Income and Trust Levels: Evidence from Longitudinal Data," IZA Discussion Papers 10585, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10585
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp10585.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. La Porta, Rafael, et al, 1997. "Trust in Large Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 333-338, May.
    2. Chuah, Swee Hoon & Gächter, Simon & Hoffmann, Robert & Tan, Jonathan H. W., 2015. "Religion, Discrimination and Trust," IZA Discussion Papers 9616, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2007. "Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1067-1101.
    4. Sutter, Matthias & Kocher, Martin G., 2007. "Trust and trustworthiness across different age groups," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 364-382, May.
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/33o86cn6qp83dot08iir97915s is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Chaudhuri, Ananish & Paichayontvijit, Tirnud & Shen, Lifeng, 2013. "Gender differences in trust and trustworthiness: Individuals, single sex and mixed sex groups," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 181-194.
    7. William Greene, 2004. "The behaviour of the maximum likelihood estimator of limited dependent variable models in the presence of fixed effects," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 7(1), pages 98-119, June.
    8. Tarja Viitanen, 2014. "Parental divorce and other determinants of interpersonal trust: Evidence from HILDA panel data," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 17(1), pages 35-53.
    9. Lorenzo Rocco & Elena Fumagalli & Marc Suhrcke, 2014. "From Social Capital To Health – And Back," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(5), pages 586-605, May.
    10. Brosig-Koch, Jeannette & Helbach, Christoph & Ockenfels, Axel & Weimann, Joachim, 2011. "Still different after all these years: Solidarity behavior in East and West Germany," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1373-1376.
    11. Nabanita Datta Gupta & Anders Poulsen & Marie Claire Villeval, 2005. "Male and Female Competitive Behavior: Experimental," Post-Print halshs-00175039, HAL.
    12. Edward Miguel & Paul Gertler & David I. Levine, 2005. "Does Social Capital Promote Industrialization? Evidence from a Rapid Industrializer," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(4), pages 754-762, November.
    13. Berggren, Niclas & Bjørnskov, Christian, 2011. "Is the importance of religion in daily life related to social trust? Cross-country and cross-state comparisons," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 459-480.
    14. Algan, Yann & Cahuc, Pierre, 2014. "Trust, Growth, and Well-Being: New Evidence and Policy Implications," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 2, pages 49-120, Elsevier.
    15. Buchan, Nancy R. & Croson, Rachel T.A. & Solnick, Sara, 2008. "Trust and gender: An examination of behavior and beliefs in the Investment Game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 466-476, December.
    16. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2006. "Does Culture Affect Economic Outcomes?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 23-48, Spring.
    17. Kouchaki, Maryam & Smith-Crowe, Kristin & Brief, Arthur P. & Sousa, Carlos, 2013. "Seeing green: Mere exposure to money triggers a business decision frame and unethical outcomes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 53-61.
    18. Martin Korndörfer & Boris Egloff & Stefan C. Schmukle, 2015. "A Large Scale Test of the Effect of Social Class on Prosocial Behavior," Working Papers 1601, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    19. Nabanita Datta Gupta & Anders Poulsen & Marie Claire Villeval, 2006. "Male and Female Competitive Behavior," Post-Print halshs-00175475, HAL.
    20. Dieckmann, Anja & Grimm, Veronika & Unfried, Matthias & Utikal, Verena & Valmasoni, Lorenzo, 2016. "On trust in honesty and volunteering among Europeans: Cross-country evidence on perceptions and behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 225-253.
    21. Dollar, David & Fisman, Raymond & Gatti, Roberta, 2001. "Are women really the "fairer" sex? Corruption and women in government," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 423-429, December.
    22. Catherine C. Eckel & Sascha C. Füllbrunn, 2015. "Thar SHE Blows? Gender, Competition, and Bubbles in Experimental Asset Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 906-920, February.
    23. Clingingsmith, David, 2016. "Negative emotions, income, and welfare: Causal estimates from the PSID," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 1-19.
    24. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2002. "Who trusts others?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 207-234, August.
    25. Oguzhan Dincer & Eric Uslaner, 2010. "Trust and growth," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 59-67, January.
    26. Jianakoplos, Nancy Ammon & Bernasek, Alexandra, 1998. "Are Women More Risk Averse?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(4), pages 620-630, October.
    27. Nicole M. Fortin, 2008. "The Gender Wage Gap among Young Adults in the United States: The Importance of Money versus People," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    28. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2016. "Gender in Jeopardy!: The Role of Opponent Gender in High-Stakes Competition," IZA Discussion Papers 9669, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    29. Vandegrift, Donald & Brown, Paul, 2005. "Gender differences in the use of high-variance strategies in tournament competition," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 834-849, December.
    30. Giordano, Giuseppe Nicola & Lindström, Martin, 2011. "Social capital and change in psychological health over time," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(8), pages 1219-1227, April.
    31. Myers, C. Daniel & Tingley, Dustin, 2016. "The Influence of Emotion on Trust," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(4), pages 492-500.
    32. Wayne A. Grove & Andrew Hussey & Michael Jetter, 2011. "The Gender Pay Gap Beyond Human Capital: Heterogeneity in Noncognitive Skills and in Labor Market Tastes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(4), pages 827-874.
    33. Martin Korndörfer & Boris Egloff & Stefan C. Schmukle, 2015. "A Large Scale Test of the Effect of Social Class on Prosocial Behavior," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 808, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    34. Marcus Dittrich, 2015. "Gender differences in trust and reciprocity: evidence from a large-scale experiment with heterogeneous subjects," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(36), pages 3825-3838, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jetter, Michael & Kristoffersen, Ingebjørg, 2018. "Financial shocks and the erosion of interpersonal trust: Evidence from longitudinal data," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 162-176.
    2. Magnusson, Leandro M. & Roth, Sebastian, 2024. "Trust, risk, and gender: Evidence from the Black Saturday Fires in Victoria, Australia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 21-39.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Becchetti, Leonardo & Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Ottone, Stefania & Solferino, Nazaria, 2013. "Allocation criteria under task performance: The gendered preference for protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 96-111.
    2. Antoci, Angelo & Bonelli, Laura & Paglieri, Fabio & Reggiani, Tommaso & Sabatini, Fabio, 2019. "Civility and trust in social media," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 83-99.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8lt2edmul9geov3cf3fqf7h92 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Maxim Ananiev & Sergei Guriev, 2014. "The Effect of Income on Trust: the Evidence from 2009 Crisis in Russia," Working Papers hal-03429914, HAL.
    5. Xin, Guangyi, 2017. "Trust and Economic Performance: A Panel Study," MPRA Paper 80815, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Badaoui, Eliane, 2023. "Which dimensions of religiosity matter for trust? New insights from the MENA region," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    7. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    8. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/8lt2edmul9geov3cf3fqf7h92 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/18morovaof8fdbvqtbkas8cvhm is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2018. "The gender of opponents: Explaining gender differences in performance and risk-taking?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 238-256.
    11. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/18morovaof8fdbvqtbkas8cvhm is not listed on IDEAS
    12. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/18morovaof8fdbvqtbkas8cvhm is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Jetter, Michael & Walker, Jay K., 2016. "Gender in Jeopardy!: The Role of Opponent Gender in High-Stakes Competition," IZA Discussion Papers 9669, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/18morovaof8fdbvqtbkas8cvhm is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Perodaud, Maxime & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Yamada, Takashi, 2022. "An experimental analysis of gender discrimination in a credence goods market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    16. José García-Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2019. "Gender and Credit Risk: A View From the Loan Officer’s Desk," Working Papers 1076, Barcelona School of Economics.
    17. Etienne Dagorn & David Masclet & Thierry Penard, 2019. "Les expériences sur les préférences individuelles et sociales des enfants et des adolescents : une revue de la litterature," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 2019-11, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    18. Hong, Kessely & Bohnet, Iris, 2007. "Status and distrust: The relevance of inequality and betrayal aversion," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 197-213, April.
    19. Alison L. Booth & Patrick Nolen, 2012. "Gender differences in risk behaviour: does nurture matter?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(558), pages 56-78, February.
    20. José Garcia Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2019. "Gender and credit risk: a view from the loan officer's desk," Economics Working Papers 1644, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    21. Fabrice Murtin & Lara Fleischer & Vincent Siegerink & Arnstein Aassve & Yann Algan & Romina Boarini & Santiago Gonzalez & Zsuzsanna Lonti & Ulrich Schmidt & Gianluca Grimalda & Rafael Hortala Vallve &, 2018. "Trust and its determinants," Working Papers hal-03596480, HAL.
      • Fabrice Murtin & Lara Fleischer & Vincent Siegerink & Arnstein Aassve & Yann Algan & Romina Boarini & Santiago Gonzalez & Zsuzsanna Lonti & Ulrich Schmidt & Gianluca Grimalda & Rafael Hortala Vallve &, 2018. "Trust and its determinants," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03596480, HAL.
    22. Karaja, Elira & Rubin, Jared, 2022. "Θ The cultural transmission of trust norms: Evidence from a lab in the field on a natural experiment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 1-19.
    23. Cameron, Lisa & Erkal, Nisvan & Gangadharan, Lata & Zhang, Marina, 2015. "Cultural integration: Experimental evidence of convergence in immigrants’ preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 38-58.
    24. Jetter, Michael & Kristoffersen, Ingebjørg, 2018. "Financial shocks and the erosion of interpersonal trust: Evidence from longitudinal data," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 162-176.
    25. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/h44c7ona088fb5o9b5dq3nt9u is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Chaudhuri, Ananish & Cruickshank, Amy & Sbai, Erwann, 2015. "Gender differences in personnel management: Some experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 20-32.
    27. Nobuyuki Hanaki & Keigo Inukai & Takehito Masuda & Yuta Shimodaira, 2021. "Participants’ Characteristics at ISER-Lab in 2020," ISER Discussion Paper 1141, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender differences; income levels and trust; interpersonal trust; neuroticism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10585. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.