The ISSP 2017 Survey on Social Networks and Social Resources: An Overview of Country-Level Results

Abstract

This contribution complements the special issue on the 2017 ISSP survey on social networks and social resources by presenting a comprehensive overview of its results at the country level. Our analysis comprises a summary of the respondents’ views on social trust and cohesion, the size and diversity their social network, their subjective health and life satisfaction, as well as the frequency of their contacts and their feeling of social isolation. When interpreting our results, we refer to the views of Putnam, Uslaner, and Larsen regarding the nature of social trust, its sources, and its consequences. In this regard, our findings show, for example, that country levels of social trust are line with prior findings—with Nordic societies such as Denmark, Iceland, Finland, and Sweden confirming their high-trust status. We, however, also observe an inverse relationship between objective inequality and the perception thereof in central-east European post-communist countries and China.