Trust Survey December 2021

Purpose of the Survey and Reference Period

Ireland was a participant country in the 2021 round of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) ‘Trust Survey’. The Trust Survey monitors people’s self-reported interpersonal trust and trust in different institutions and levels of government across OECD countries. Ireland was one of 20 countries that participated in the 2021 round of the survey, which also included Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and United States. It is expected that the OECD will publish inter country results from this survey in June 2022.

Sample Selection

The sample consisted of 5,152 people. The sample frame was generated from Labour Force Survey (LFS) respondents that had agreed to be contacted for further research and had provided relevant contact details (such as an email address or telephone number). The Labour Force Survey is a 2-stage sample design stratified using Administrative County and the Pobal HP Deprivation Index. For further information about this methodology, please see Labour Force Survey.

Data Collection

An online questionnaire (PDF 122KB)  on the Trust survey was conducted by the CSO from 24^th of November to the 17^th of December 2021. Individuals selected received an email from the CSO and were asked to complete the questionnaire online. Multiple reminders were issued for the survey, with the last reminder occurring on the 13^th of December 2021. The achieved sample was 1,135, a response rate of 22%.

Sample Design

Some consideration needs to be given to the potential impact of sample design on response rates and achieved sample:

• The original LFS sample from which this sample was selected was based on Census 2011 data and designed to represent the population then, so new additions to the population may not be fully represented.
• The sampling frame excludes people who do not live in private households, so may not cover some of those who may be more likely to have lower institutional trust levels and satisfaction levels with public services.
• The sampling frame was composed of individuals who had responded through 5 waves of the LFS survey, which could have introduced bias into the sample, as their characteristics may differ in some way to people more inclined to drop out of a longitudinal sample over time.
• The sample did not include people that did not provide an email address, which means members of the population less likely to have an email address, such as older people or people without internet access, were likely to be underrepresented.
• The achieved sample distribution could also have been impacted by non-response bias. This is caused by the fact that some respondents might be more inclined to respond than others, and people who respond to these surveys often have different characteristics compared to non-respondents.

Weighting

The survey has been weighted according to sex, age and region, using Q3 2021 Labour Force Survey population estimates as benchmarks. Population totals were split by sex (male / female), age categories (18-29, 30-49, 50-64, and 65+) and NUTS2 region (Northern & Western, Southern, and Eastern & Midlands), to calculate the grossing weights. A gaussian noise function was added to each weight value also.

Population distributions from LFS Q3 2021 (the most recent estimates available at the time of analysis) were compared with the sample distribution across key characteristics both before and after weighting.  See table below.

Questionnaire

In addition to questions on interpersonal and institutional trust, respondents were asked to rate their satisfaction levels with specific public services. They were also asked about their expectations related to behaviours of public sector employees, politicians and public institutions and to evaluate government action on certain key long-term challenges (e.g. climate change). The questionnaire closely followed the OECD’s recommended survey questions. The questions related to respondents’ comfort levels at leaving a key with a neighbour and respondents’ expectations related to the return of a lost wallet/purse were not part of the OECD survey questionnaire.

Data Analysis

Some key analysis variables within this publication are:

Highest Level of Education Attained

This classification is derived from a single question and refers to educational standards that have been attained by the respondent.

The question is phrased as follows:

What is the highest level of education or training you have ever successfully completed?

For the purposes of this publication highest level of education attained has been classified as follows:

• Third-level bachelor degree or higher
• Lower than third level bachelor degree

Degree of Urbanisation

Degree of Urbanisation analysis presented in this publication is based on the following population densities derived from Census of Population 2016:

• City Population density >49,999
• Town >1,499 and <50,000
• Rural Population density <2000

NUTS2 Regions

Regional analysis is presented in this publication are based on the NUTS2 (Nomenclature of Territorial Units) classification used by Eurostat. The regions are categorised as follows:

• Northern and Western
• Southern
• Eastern and Midland

These regions are comprised as follows:

Voting Status in Last General Election

Respondents were asked if they voted in the last general election and if so, whether they voted for a party currently part of the government. For the purpose of this survey, respondents who voted in the last general election are classified as

• Voted for a government party
• Voted for a party not in government.

Work Situation

Respondent were asked Which of the following categories best describes your current situation?

Answer options were

• Full-time employed
• Part-time employed
• In receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP)
• Unemployed
• Retired
• Unable to work due to longstanding health problems
• Student, pupil
• Fulfilling domestic tasks
• Other

The results from this variable were combined to create a classification of work situation as follows:

• Employed
• Retired
• Other

Sex and Age Group

Results are also broken down by sex (male, female) and age groups (18-44 year olds, 45-64 year olds and respondents aged 65 and over).

Acknowledgement

The Central Statistics Office wishes to thank the participants for their co-operation in agreeing to take part in the Trust Survey and for facilitating the collection of the relevant data.