Differences in political trust between migrants and non-migrants in pandemic times

Abstract

Political trust is one aspect that might be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the strict government-implemented measures to fight the virus. Previous studies report an increase in political trust at the onset of the pandemic in several European countries, followed by a marginal decline over the further course of the pandemic. However, it is unclear how political trust changes among first and second generation migrants in Germany compared to natives throughout the pandemic. To address this question, we use data from the adult cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) at one measurement point before, and two during the pandemic. Consistent with previous studies, our data show that pre-pandemic, political trust is higher among first generation migrants than among second generation migrants and natives. We examine how these previous differences evolve throughout the pandemic. Our results indicate that political trust increases significantly only for natives and second generation migrants, but not for first generation migrants at the beginning of the pandemic. Later in the first year of the pandemic, political trust is higher than pre-pandemic for all groups. Neither vulnerabilities nor sociodemographic control variables can explain the differences between the groups.