Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Level of Education and Trust: a Cross-country Context

In this paper an empirical analysis of the relation between trust level and educational level is performing on the basis of 21 European countries dataset. Currently the expansion of vertically-integrated model of educational differentiation leads to the fact that more and more people intend to get an academic higher education rather than specialize in any particular field. Is the advance in educational level important for the economy and society, indeed? In this paper the relation between particular levels of education and trust is considered. The significance of parent’s education in establishing an individual level of trust and the role of Mass Media are also estimating. The main database consists of 20 thousands individual’s answers and contains the information about personal characteristics, characteristics of employment and income which will also be employed in the research. The analysis is carried out using the instruments of binary-choice econometric models; moreover, multilevel linear modeling is exploited. The results has shown that the relation between trust level and educational level exists and such factors as family social capital and Mass Media significantly affect on trust.