In international comparative research, significant advances have been made in the study of the effect of social capital and the welfare state on subjective well-being (SWB). However, few studies have examined how the welfare state influences the impact of social capital on SWB. To fill this gap, from the perspectives of the crowding-out and crowding-in hypotheses, this study explores whether welfare provisions alter the role of three dimensions of social capital – namely, social trust, formal social contact, and informal social contact, in SWB. The present study utilises international comparative data from nine waves of the European Social Survey of 2002 to 2019 and a two-way fixed-effects model to evaluate the cross-level interaction effects of welfare provisions and the three dimensions of social capital on SWB. This analysis reveals that welfare spending strengthens the positive association between social capital and SWB.
Although previous studies have examined the influence of education on support for redistribution, studies on how this social cleavage of support for redistribution due to education varies depending on several conditions are scarce. To fill this gap, by focusing on the discussions of motivation with self-interest and with the perception of fairness, this study examines the moderation effects of social and institutional trust on the association between education and the demand for redistribution. For the analysis, the present study utilizes pooled data from multiple rounds of the World Values Survey and the European Values Study and two-way fixed-effects models. Through the international comparative analysis, this analysis finds that social trust but not institutional trust dampens the cleavage of support for redistribution due to education. These results suggest that the horizontal aspect of trust may be more influential on preferences for redistribution than the vertical aspect of trust.
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