Trust in institutions and subjective well-being: Evidence from the Philippines

Abstract

We examine the institutional drivers of subjective well-being (SWB). Using a repeated cross-sectional data set from the Philippines spanning three decades, we estimate the relationship of people's trust in public institutions and SWB, measured in terms of people's satisfaction with their lives. Our findings, based on estimates which control for a range of individual-level characteristics, show that people's trust in public institutions is strongly associated with their well-being. In particular, a great deal of trust in the Police, Congress, and Judiciary is positively associated with people's satisfaction with their lives while a lack of trust in Congress, Civil Service, and Executive is negatively related to life satisfaction. Findings are discussed vis-à-vis their implications for Philippine public policy and to well-being-oriented policy regimes more generally.