Life Satisfaction and Institutional and Interpersonal Trust: A Comparative Analysis of Italian and Foreign Citizens

Institutional trust and interpersonal trust are key ingredients of growth, individual and societal well-being, and governance. The aim of this paper is to study the subjective well-being (SWB) of the resident population in Italy, by analyzing the association between self-reported life satisfaction and institutional and interpersonal trust, controlling for sociodemographic, human capital and other measures of SWB, whilst distinguishing between Italian and foreign citizens. We used data from the cross-sectional survey on “Aspects of Daily Life”, collected by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) from 2015–2021. The multivariate analysis is based on ordinary least squares regression (OLS) with wave fixed effects to account for changes in the distribution between different years. Results suggest that higher interpersonal trust is associated with higher levels of life satisfaction. Moreover, the association of institutional trust with life satisfaction is positive, albeit comparatively small in magnitude. Both Italian and foreign citizens show comparable outcomes.