Public trust in the Chinese government and life satisfaction during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

It is important to understand the public’s trust in the government’s ability to handle crisis events. Based on China Family Panel Studies data in 2018 and 2020, this paper explores the interaction between government trust and life satisfaction during the pandemic. It is found that with the increase in public trust in government officials, individual life satisfaction has been significantly improved. The main mechanism is that government trust enhances people’s confidence in the future and promotes the government’s investment in the livelihood fields. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, individual life satisfaction suffered a negative impact. Individuals with high trust in the government before the pandemic had a small decrease in life satisfaction. At the same time, when faced with the pandemic, individuals were more willing to trust the government due to the desire to overcome common threats, which will alleviate the negative impact of the pandemic on individual life satisfaction. The research reported in this paper helps to explain the role of government in the crisis period from the perspective of public trust and provides useful information for the government to formulate and adjust policies to mitigate the impact of the crisis events. Points for practitioners In China, trust in local governments is related to public satisfaction. People are more willing to increase trust in the government to overcome a common crisis, thus reducing the negative impact of the crisis on individual life satisfaction. Perhaps more important is to promote the public service motivation of government officials through government trust. Providing public services, increasing accountability and transparency in society, and increasing citizen engagement are all effective ways to foster institutional trust.