1 Introduction

In dealing with strangers, some think most can be trusted, while others believe that we cannot be too careful. When people trust in strangers, they have an expectation of “goodwill and benign intent” from general others (Yamagishi and Yamagishi 1994:131; Uslaner 2002). This generalized trust, or trust in “a wider circle of unfamiliar others” (Delhey et al. 2011:786), indicates the quality of life of individuals and societies. Indeed, trusting individuals are often better off financially, stand at a higher socioeconomic status, are generally happier, have better health, are more satisfied with their life, and even tend to live longer (e.g., Coleman 1988; Lin 2002; Kawachi and Berkman 2000; Helliwell and Aknin 2018; Miething et al. 2020). Societies with more trust function better, are richer, are safer, are more cohesive, and are more democratic (e.g., Fukuyama 1995; Warren and (Ed.) 1999; Algan and Cahuc 2010; Uslaner 2018).

Currently, scholars have offered two distinctive perspectives to explain the formation of trust. On one hand, a cultural perspective considers trust as a relatively stable, persistent human trait learned through socialization early in life (Uslaner 2002; 2008; Stolle and Hooghe 2004; Dawson 2019; Wu 2020a). On the other hand, an experiential perspective views trust as a product of contemporary social experiences, which is not rigid but open to fluctuations based on an individual’ changing life experiences in different contexts (Glanville and Paxton 2007; Dinesen and Sønderskov 2015; Paxton and Glanville 2015; Dinesen and Sønderskov 2018a, b). To contribute to this long-standing debate, in this article I consider how the experience of growing up in a high trust place and then migrating to a low trust place might affect migrants’ trust and vice versa. In particular, this research seeks to improve on prior work that examines whether trust travels from one country to another to study the roots of trust (e.g., Uslaner 2008; Dinesen and Hooghe 2010; Dinesen 2012a, b; Nannestad et al. 2014; Helliwell et al. 2015; for a detailed review, please see Dinesen and Sønderskov 2018a, b). The solution offered here is to not only look at internal migration within one country-Canada, but also consider the time of migration-the age when migrants migrated, a largely overlooked issue in previous immigrant-based studies of the roots of trust. In Canada, trust is lower in Quebec (Kazemipur 2006; Hwang 2013; Turcotte 2015; Wu and Wilkes 2016). Accordingly, I explore whether people who were brought up in low trust Quebec will become more trusting when they move to live in other provinces with more trust such as British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia and vice versa. If people who grew up in Quebec in pre-adulthood but moved to live in other provinces as an adult do not gain trust, this means that their trust is rooted in their early life course. However, if they do become more trusting after living with people who have more trust, it will suggest that trust is experiential, fluctuating in response to the changing trust environment.

My analyses of data from both the 2014 and the 2013 Canadian General Social Survey show that migration change people’s trust very little. Quebecers who emigrated to live in other regions of the country continue to show a lower level of trust and Canadians who migrated to live in Quebec remain more trusting. The pattern is most significant among migrants who migrated as an adult. My additional analysis also shows that Quebec migrants residing in the Atlantic region, closer to Quebec, seem to have more trust than Quebecers residing in the Prairie regions and British Columbia that are overwhelmingly English-speaking and far away from Quebec geographically, which yields some support for the experiential theory of trust. Nonetheless, the overall pattern lends stronger support for the cultural theory that an individual’ trust in others is stabilized early in life. This research also highlights the importance of considering the age when migrants migrated in using migration to study the origins of trust.

2 Does Migration Change People’s Trust?

The essential importance of trust to both individual wellbeing and the function of a society has sparked a growing interest in the question: What predicts trust? (e.g., Alesina and La Ferrara 2002; Delhey and Newton 2003; Glanville and Paxton 2007; Robbins 2012; Uslaner 2018). In current literature, two sharply distinct perspectives compete to explain why some people are more trusting than others. A culture theory views trust as a stable trait people inherit from their parents and within the cultural environment in which they were immersed when growing up (Erikson 1950; Stolle and Hooghe 2004; Uslaner 2002; 2008; Dawson 2019). Once learned, day-to-day life experiences in adulthood such as losing job, getting divorced, and even being victimized have little impact on people’s trust, if at all (Uslaner 2002; Stolle and Hooghe 2004; Bauer 2015). Conversely, an experiential theory suggests that people express their trust based on their contemporary life experiences and to fit changing circumstances (Glanville and Paxton 2007; Glanville et al. 2013; Paxton and Glanville 2015; Dinesen and Sønderskov 2018a, b). In this view, trust is not rigid but open to fluctuations (Dinesen and Hooghe 2010; Paxton and Glanville 2015).

To address this debate, a group of scholars have innovatively examined whether trust travels from one country to another (e.g., Dinesen and Hooghe 2010; Dinesen 2012a, b; Dinesen 2013; Nannestad et al. 2014; Uslaner 2008; Helliwell et al. 2015; for a review, see Dinesen and Sønderskov 2018a, b). In this line of research, population migrating from one country to another is used as a quasi-experiment to test whether trust of immigrants is attached to their cultural origins and remains stable or rather, their trust is acculturated in response to their new experiences in the destination country (see also Helliwell et al. 2015; Dinesen and Sønderskov 2018a, b). Specifically, scholars have tested whether immigrants have a similar level of trust to local natives or whether they have a similar level of trust to people from their country of origin. The assumption is that, if trust of immigrants is aligned with the trust of natives in their present country, this indicates that trust is experiential. Conversely, if immigrants have lower trust than local natives, this suggests that their trust continues to reflect their cultural heritage as immigrants often came from low-trust countries (see also Uslaner 2008; Dinesen and Sønderskov 2018a, b).

Conclusions from these previous studies however are mixed. Some scholars find stronger evidence for the long-run persistence of trust: trust among recent immigrants or descendants of immigrants come from the cultural footprints of their ancestral roots and it does not shift with their new experiences in the hosting country (e.g., Rice and Feldman 1997; Uslaner 2008; Ljunge 2014; Moschion and Tabasso 2014). In the U.S., Rice and Feldman (1997) have explored whether civic attitudes, including generalized trust, are Americanized or they are deeply rooted into their original footprints from Europe. Based on the strong correlation between the civic attitudes of local Americans (indicated using data from the U.S. General Social Survey) and the contemporary civic attitudes of the citizens of the European nations where they have ethnic ties (indicated using the World Values Survey), they conclude that trust and other civic values are quite tenacious across oceans and over generations. In Australia, Moschion and Tabasso (2014) find that second-generation immigrants’ trust is positively related to trust in their home country. In Canada, trust of immigrants is also found to be highly correlated with the average level of trust among people in their respective countries of origin (Soroka et al. 2007a, b; Bilodeau and White 2016). These studies conclude that trust is learned through cultural socialization early in life, and learned trust persists into adult life.

In contrast, some find stronger evidence for the experiential theory, which suggests that trust is open to change, and it reflects immigrants’ new social experiences in the host country (Dinesen and Hooghe 2010; Dinesen 2012a, b; Nannestad et al. 2014; Dinesen and Sønderskov 2018a, b). Dinesen and Hooghe (2010) investigate the effect from the trust of native population on immigrants’ trust. As with earlier studies, they measure trust of local population and trust of immigrants’ original nations using two different datasets (European Social Survey and World Values Survey, respectively). They find that immigrants, second-generation immigrants in particular, do adapt to the level of trust of natives in their destination country. Nannestad et al. (2014) combine a local Danish survey (Denmark Social Capital Survey 2004) with World Value Surveys and compare the levels of trust between groups of non-Western immigrants in Denmark and people of their country of origin. They conclude that, rather than immigrants’ cultural relatedness, it is their trust in Danish institutions and their resources (indicated by education and income) that have significant impact on their trust in others. To address the limitation of using multiple different datasets to compare immigrants’ trust to crude country averages from their country of origin, Dinesen (2012a, b) has refined his previous research design by using only the European Social Survey (ESS). His analyses suggest that, while there are inconsistent effects of length of stay, Turks, Poles, and Italians in Northern Europe display significantly higher levels of trust than the comparable respondents from their country of origin. Therefore, he concludes that trust is malleable and subject to change with new experiences in different social situations.

Complicating the debate, some scholars show that international migrants’ trust reflects both their new experiences in the country where they currently live as well as the long-standing cultures from the place where they or their parents and grandparents originally came from. Comparing the trust of immigrants in 18 Western European countries from 90 countries of origin, Dinesen (2013) finds that immigrants’ trust is significantly related to the level of trust in their country of origin. Further, he shows that their trust also responds to the institutional environment of the destination country such as the extent of freedom from corruption. Accordingly, he concludes that both cultural heritage and institutional context have a substantial and highly significant impact on trust. Similarly, using seven waves of the Gallup World Poll (2005–2012) and combining both individual and national level data in more than 130 countries, Helliwell et al. (2015) find that both local conditions and influences of their countries of origin shape migrants’ trust, suggesting that while trust is deeply rooted in cultural norms it is nonetheless subject to adaptation according to the changing environment.

While major inroads have been made, one issue that plagues all previous immigrant-based studies of the roots of trust is the self-selection of immigrants. Dinesen and Sønderskov (2018a, b) outline four major ways that previous studies of trust of immigrants could suffer from the problem of self-selection bias. First, immigrants may differ from non-migrants in unpredictable ways including, for example, the selection of better educated individuals and the selection of individuals who can afford to take on more risk. Second, the self-selection bias could also come from the place of origin: whereas from some countries emigrants are economic migrants (e.g., domestic helpers or maids from the Philippines), from others they are political refugees (e.g., refugees from Syria). Third, varying immigration policies of the destination country are likely to generate different kinds of immigrants and from different world regions. Finally, the nature of immigrants also depends on where they migrate to and from which country at what time. These potential selection issues are likely to bias how immigrants trust differently (or similarly) from people of their ancestral country as well as from local natives (Dinesen and Sønderskov 2018a, b; Wilkes and Wu 2018a, b).

Furthermore, previous research has largely overlooked the age when immigrants migrated. While the cultural theory suggests that people learned to trust early in life, the experiential theory views trust as a product of people’s contemporary social experiences. Hence, time is central to the debate over the formation of trust (see also Wu 2020b). In fact, if migrants migrated at a young age, they are likely to undergo their primary socialization in the destination environment. Research suggests that younger immigrants are better at learning the local language and are able to more easily adapt to local cultures and customs (Berry 1997; Schwartz et al. 2010; Hou et al. 2017). In this sense, it is difficult to tell whether trust of immigrants reflects their cultural socialization or their contemporary experiences (see also Wilkes and Wu 2018a, b). Therefore, the age when migrants migrated could also bias the trust gap between migrants and natives and the gap between migrants and non-migrants. Accordingly, it is essential to make a distinction between immigrants who landed as an adult and those who landed as a child or an adolescent who were still undergoing their primary socialization. In what follows, I introduce a new research design focusing on internal migration in Canada.

3 Trust and Internal Migration in Canada

Canada is a high trust country. More than half of its people would agree that most people can be trusted (Uslaner 2012a, b; Turcotte 2015; see also Fig. 1), while globally, data from the most recent wave of the World Values Survey (2010–2014) shows that less than one third of the world population would say that most people can be trusted. Several scholars have considered why Canadians tend to have more trust than people from many other countries. Uslaner (2012a, b), for example, suggests that trust is high in Canada because Canadian society is a relatively more equal society. Canada’s immigration policy has also played a role in creating a high trust Canadian society. Historically, many of the early immigrants to Canada came from high-trusting European countries (Uslaner 2012a, b). In recent decades, the selective immigration policies including the point-based system adopted since 1967 and the Provincial Nominee Programs have attracted highly educated, skilled, and wealthy immigrants who are very trusting (Bilodeau and White 2016; Soroka et al. 2007a, b; Uslaner 2012a, b).

Fig. 1
figure 1

% who say most people can be trusted across regions in Canada (CGSS 2003–2013, weighted)

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However, high trust does not mean trust is unequally distributed. Regionally, Fig. 1 shows that trust is significantly lower in Quebec than in the rest of the country (see also Kazemipur 2006; Hwang 2013; Turcotte 2015). This gap can be seen across three waves of data from Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey in 2003, 2008, and 2013. The figure also shows that while all regions experienced a depletion of trust during the 2008 financial crisis (see also Lindström et al. 2016), the gap between Quebec and the rest of country remained persistent. Analyzing the data from Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey in 2013, Wu and Wilkes (2016) show that in Quebec only 36 percent of people would agree that most people can be trusted, compared to 58 percent for the rest of Canada (see also Fig. 1). Our analyses suggest that the gap is not a function of urban–rural differences, gender or even differences between English and French-speaking respondents. We also show that people from Quebec are less likely to trust people in the neighborhood, people from work or school, people who speak a different language, strangers, and even members of their own family (Wu and Wilkes 2016). Future research needs to look at the specific factors that can explain the durable gap. Nonetheless, underlying the trust differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada is likely the cultural distinctiveness between French Canada and English Canada (Stolle and Uslaner 2003; Uslaner 2012a, b).

The persistent gap in trust between Quebec and the rest of Canada offers an opportunity to test how internal migration between Quebec and the rest of the country might affect migrants’ trust. Specifically, in this article I explore whether Canadians who were brought up in low trust Quebec will become more trusting when they migrate to live in other provinces such as British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia and vice versa. Moving from international migration to internal migration helps eliminate or reduce the magnitude of the self-selection bias. Theoretically, internal migrants are less selective for many reasons. First, everyone is free to move internally within in their country. Therefore, domestic migrants within a country are relatively less selective because they are less affected by migration policies, visas, and other constraints that could severely bias who get to migrate, from and to where. Although, admittedly, internal migrants could also differ from non-migrants in terms of socioeconomic status, risk-taking attitudes, and other factors that could affect trust, these factors are also easier to control for in analysis. Finally, they also grow up in the same political and economic environment of the country and thus, the potential confounding effects from the institutional factors become constant.

Methodologically, it is easier to control for self-selection bias when focusing on internal migrants. First, the use of internal migration allows us to analyze single dataset that includes both migrants and non-migrants from the same country (see also Dinesen 2013; Wu 2020a). This mitigates the problems stemming from the use of multiple incomparable datasets and minimizes the potential measurement inequivalence problem. Second, internal migrants in one country from the same survey are also more likely to interpret trust questions from the survey in a similar way, minimizing the problem that people of different cultures could interpret trust questions in significantly different ways (Delhey et al. 2011; Nannestad 2008).

In the U.S., trust is lower in the South. My recent analysis of the cross-sectional data from the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS, 1972–2018) suggests that, after age 16 Southerners will not become more trusting when they move to Northern regions and non-Southerners will not lose trust when they move down to the South. Hence, I have concluded that Americans learned to trust in pre-adulthood from the place where they grew up and their learned trust tends to be stable (Wu 2020a). Although the results from my empirical analyses of the U.S. case supported the arguments presented, this current research focusing on internal migration in Canada can refine my previous study on internal migration and trust among Americans in two major ways. First, by using the 2014 Canadian General Social Survey, I can obtain a larger sample of internal migrants from the same year. In my previous study, the sample size of the U.S. General Social Survey is relatively small (only about 2000 for each year) which limits the number of internal migrants (less than 100). Second, the relative larger sample of internal migrants provides a way to test how internal migrants might trust differently according to their specific hosting region. Third, in this study I also consider the age when migrants migrated- a factor largely overlooked in previous immigrant-based studies. In so doing, I can distinguish between child migration and adult migration and test how they might affect migrants’ trust differently.

4 Analytical Strategy

4.1 Data

The data for this study comes from Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey (CGSS). The 2014 CGSS includes 33089 representative respondents across Canada and is one of the largest surveys in the world, especially considering Canada’s relatively small population size (about 37.59 million in 2019). To minimize issues such as self-seletion bias and measurement inequivalence, this research will focus on native-born Canadians only. Selecting out the native-born population yields a total analytic sample of 23494 who have completed data on all study variables.

4.2 Measures

4.2.1 Trust

To measure generalized trust, I use the question of “Using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 means ‘cannot be trusted at all’ and 5 means ‘can be trusted a lot’, how much do you trust in strangers” (see also Stolle 2002). I recoded the variable into a binary measure with “0” corresponding to the first two categories, and “1” to the last three. The more widely-used question “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted” were not asked in this cycle. The 2013 CGSS has this standard measure of trust but it does not include variables that would allow me to code internal migration. My analysis of the data from the 2013 CGSS shows that “trust in strangers” is highly associated with “trust in most people” (tetrachoric correlation, r = 0.64; see also Stolle 2002).

4.2.2 Internal Migration

To code internal migration in Canada, I compare two variables in the survey. One indicates respondents’ region of current residence and another indicates their region of birth (a proxy for native region). I separate between Quebec and the rest of Canada (ROC: Atlantic region, Ontario, Prairie region, and British Columbia). Based on these two variables, I categorize Canadians into four groups: Quebec non-migrants (both current residence and region of birth in Quebec), ROC non-migrants (both current residence and region of birth in ROC), Quebec to ROC migrants (region of birth in Quebec, but current residence in ROC), and ROC to Quebec migrants (region of birth in ROC, but current residence in Quebec).

4.2.3 Time of Migration

To determine when people migrated, I make use of two variables in the CGSS. One is the length of time respondent has lived in current city or local community with four response categories: less than 3 years, 3 years to less than 5 years, 5 years to less than 10 years, and 10 or more years. This can be used to indicate whether a respondent is a local native or a migrant who moved only recently to the current city of residence. Another is respondents’ age group with seven categories: 15 to 24, 25to 34, 35 to 44, 45 to 54, 55 to 64, 65 to 74, and 75 years or older. Combing these two variables, Table 2 shows length of living in current city or community among Quebec to ROC migrants and ROC to Quebec migrants across age groups. In total, 209 respondents migrated from the ROC to Quebec, and the majority have lived in Quebec for 10 years or longer. A total of 668 respondents moved from Quebec to other regions of the country and most have lived outside Quebec for 10 or more years (see Table 1).

Table 1 Length of living in current city among internal migrants across age groups
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Among the majority of migrants who have lived in their current city or community for more than 10 years, it is difficult to determine the age when they migrated. However, if they have lived in their current residence less than 10 years, we can approximately determine their age of migration. Specifically, for example, if an individual has only lived in their current city less than 5 years, but he or she is in age group of 25–34, this would suggest that this individual migrated to the current city as an adult (after age 20). Using this method, we can select out a sample of respondents who migrated as an adult (see grey area of Table 2). While this method to identify adult migrants is not perfect, it is an update from previous studies that overlook the age when migrants migrated.

Table 2 Coding adult migration
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Figure 2 visualizes the descriptive results. Figure 2a shows that non-migrants in ROC has an overall trust level of 46%, meaning that 46% of Canadians in ROC would say that they trust in strangers. When they move to Quebec where people tend to have lower trust, they do not seem to adjust their trust level. As shown in the figure, trust of the ROC to Quebec migrants remains at the same level (overall = 46%, adult = 45%). Figure 2b shows that Quebec non-migrants have a trust level of 36%. When they move from Quebec to other regions of Canada, their trust increases to 43%. This seems to suggest that Quebecers who migrate to ROC with higher levels of trust are gaining more trust. As we discussed early on, it is essential to distinguish between migrants who migrated as an adult and those who migrated during their childhood and therefore were still undergoing primary socialization. Migrants who migrated at a young age could be socialized in the destination place, making it harder to separate the cultural effect from the experiential effect. However, when we focus only on adult migrants, trust of Quebec migrants in ROC remains low with a level of 33%. The descriptive results suggest that whereas people might be able to update their trust if they migrate at a young age, migration as an adult does not change people’s trust.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Effects of internal migration between ROC and Quebec on trust

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Other demographic variables that I control for in my analysis include household income, level of education, gender, age, marital status, urban–rural, religion, and visible minority status (see SI Table 3 for descriptive statistics).

4.3 Statistical Models

Treating trust as a binary outcome, I use logistic regression for multivariate estimations. The full model can be expressed as follows:

$$ \log \left( {\frac{{{\text{P}}_{{\text{i}}} \left( {{\text{Trust}} = 1} \right)}}{{1 - {\text{P}}_{{\text{i}}} \left( {{\text{Trust}} = 1} \right)}}} \right) = {\upalpha }_{0} + {\upalpha }_{1} {\text{QR}}_{{\text{i}}} + {\upalpha }_{2} {\text{QM}}_{{\text{i}}} + {\upalpha }_{3} {\text{ROC M}}_{{\text{i}}} + {\upalpha }_{4} {\text{Controls}}_{{\text{i}}} $$
(1)

In the Eq. (1), \({\mathrm{P}}_{\mathrm{i}}\left(\mathrm{Trust}=1\right)\) denotes the probability of being trusting for the \(\mathrm{i}\)th individual. \({\mathrm{Controls}}_{\mathrm{i}}\) denotes a series of control variables (age, gender, education level, marital status, and minority status) and \( {{\alpha }}_{4} \) is a vector of corresponding coefficients. Our focus is on the odds ratios of three key variables in analysis Quebec non-migrant (\({\mathrm{QR}}_{\mathrm{i}})\), Quebec to ROC migrant (\({\mathrm{QM}}_{\mathrm{i}})\), and ROC to Quebec migrant (\({\mathrm{ROC M}}_{\mathrm{i}})\). Quebec non-migrant (\({\mathrm{QR}}_{\mathrm{i}})\) indicates the gap in the probability of being trusting between Quebec residents and ROC non-migrants (reference group). Quebec to ROC migrant (\({\mathrm{QM}}_{\mathrm{i}})\) denotes Canadians who grew up in Quebec but moved to live in the rest of the country. ROC to Quebec migrant (\({\mathrm{ROC M}}_{\mathrm{i}})\) captures those who grew up in other provinces outside Quebec but moved to live in Quebec. The primary goal of this research is to test whether migrants from ROC to Quebec will trust differently than ROC non-migrants, and whether Quebec to ROC migrants will still have a level of trust similar to Quebec non-migrants. The focus is on the effect of adult migration since it is more difficult to separate between the cultural effect and experiential effect using child migration.

5 Findings

Figure 3 reports the odds ratios from multivariate estimations (see SI Table 3 for full model results). The overall model (Model 1) is based on the full sample of internal migrants, while the adult migration model (Model 2) includes only those internal migrants who migrated as an adult. Both models include potential confounders such as gender, age, education, household income, visible minority status, and religion. The reference group is ROC non-migrants. Figure 3a confirms the well-established gap in trust between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Comparing odds of trusting among migrants and non-migrants in Canada

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Figure 3b shows that the gap in trust between ROC to Quebec migrants and ROC non-migrants is relatively small and not significant. The odds ratio of 0.896 for the full sample suggests that ROC migrants do not seem to lose much trust after migrating to low trust Quebec, and this is especially true among adult migrants (odds ratio = 0.96).

Figure 3c shows a larger gap between Quebec to ROC migrants and ROC non-migrants (odds ratio: 0.806 for all migrants, 0.517 for adult migrants), suggesting that migrants from Quebec in ROC still have lower trust than ROC non-migrants. This gap from the full sample does not reach to any level of significance. Potentially, this is because migrants from Quebec might be able to gain some trust if they migrated to more trusting ROC as a child. However, the gap becomes significant and far more substantial if we consider only adult migrants (odds ratio = 0.517*). This is to say that Quebecers who migrated to ROC as an adult trust significantly less than local ROC non-migrants.

Finally, if we compare Quebec to ROC migrants to Quebec non-migrants, we can see that the gap is small comparing their relative odds ratios to the reference group-ROC non-migrants. Among adult migrants, both Quebec non-migrants in Quebec and Quebec migrants in ROC have about 40–50% less odds than ROC non-migrants to say that they can trust. This again shows that adult migration changes migrants’ trust very little.

Figure 4 reports the predicted probabilities of trusting in strangers for the four groups in focus. ROC non-migrants (0.46) has much lower trust than Quebec non-migrants (0.35). Overall, it seems that ROC to Quebec migrants (0.46) and Quebec to ROC migrants (0.44) share a similar level of trust. However, the pattern becomes clearer when we focus only on adult migrants. Among adult migrants, ROC to Quebec migrants (0.45) remain very trusting in Quebec, and they have a level of trust identical to their non-migrant counterparts in ROC where they originally came from (0.45). Similarly, Quebec to ROC migrants (0.34) show a level of trust similar to their non-migrant counterparts back in Quebec (0.36).

Fig. 4
figure 4

Predicted probabilities of trusting for ROC non-migrants, Quebec non-migrants, ROC to Quebec migrants, and Quebec to ROC migrants

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The findings suggest that migrants who migrated as an adult have a level of trust closer to non-migrants from where they grew up, rather than to local natives in the host region where they migrated to. The fact that internal migration between Quebec and ROC changes migrants’ trust very little suggests that cultural socialization when growing up matters more than contemporary social experiences in shaping people’s trust (see also Uslaner 2008; Wu 2020a). The regression results also indicate the importance of taking into consideration the age when migrants migrated. When we focus on adult migrants only, we see a clear pattern that migration to a lower or higher trust place changes migrants’ trust very little. ROC to Quebec migrants do not trust differently than ROC non-migrants after living in Quebec, and Quebec to ROC migrants still have significantly lower trust than the local non-migrants regardless of how long they have lived in ROC.

To further determinate whether people’s trust, to some extent, might also respond to their changing social experiences. I conduct additional analysis to consider whether specific destination locations might change the overall pattern. Figure 5 reports the odds ratios from a series of multivariate logistic regressions, separately by regions including Atlantic region, Quebec, Ontario, Prairie region, and British Columbia as well as for the total ROC. In Quebec, the comparison is between Quebec natives and ROC migrants (reference group), while in ROC regions the comparison is between Quebec migrants and local ROC individuals (reference group). First, it shows that, across all regions, trust is lower among Quebec migrants, and this is especially true if we consider adult migrants only (Fig. 5b). Second, it also shows, however, that Quebec migrants residing in the Atlantic region, closer to Quebec (and where more Francophones live), have higher levels of trust than Quebec migrants residing in the Prairie regions and British Columbia. One potential explanation is that Quebecers are more likely to feel discriminated or not respected for their different cultural ways in provinces that are overwhelmingly English-speaking and far away from Quebec geographically. This finding that trust of Quebec migrants do vary across different regions is more in line with the experiential perspective. Nonetheless, with the small size of Quebec migrants who migrated as an adult, it is difficult to conclude that Quebec migrants do change their trust according to their specific social interactions in different regions.

Fig. 5
figure 5

Comparing trust of Quebec migrants across specific destination regions and ROC overall (in Quebec: Quebec natives vs. ROC migrants), odds ratios a Overall b Adult migration The reference group is ROC natives in ROC (= 1) and ROC migrants in Quebec (= 1), therefore odds ratio small than 1 means less trusting

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6 Discussion

As both French and English are official languages of Canada, language may be even more salient a dividing line than the regional difference between Quebec and ROC (Hwang et al. 2007; Uslaner 2012a, b). Between French Canadians and English Canadians, the two largest ethnic groups, scholars find that Francophones are significantly less trusting than Anglophones (Soroka et al. 2007a, b; Hwang 2013; Stolle and Uslaner 2003). For instance, Uslaner’s (2012a, b) analysis of the 2008 General Social Survey shows that Francophones (30%) are only half as trusting as Anglophones (about 60%). The fact that Francophones are less trusting, and that Francophones are also concentrated in Quebec presents the need to detail whether it is the language/ethnicity (French cultural heritage) that explains the significant trust gap between Quebec and ROC.

Hence, I consider further that how French Canadians might trust differently than English Canadians both in and outside Quebec using data from the Statistic Canada’s 2013 General Social Survey. Exploring the interaction effects between region and language provides another way to test the cultural vs. experiential debate about trust. Treating language as a proxy for culture (see also Dinesen 2012a, b), if trust reflects cultural heritage, we expect that Francophones who live outside Quebec will continue to share a similar level of trust with those from Quebec, and thus they will have a lower trust than Anglophones. Conversely, if trust responds to localized experiences, we expect Francophones who currently live outside Quebec where people are more trusting will have a higher level of trust than those Francophones who live in Quebec.

Figure 6 reports the predicated probabilities of saying most people can be trusted across ROC Anglophones, QC Anglophones, QC Francophones, and ROC Francophones. It shows that (1) Francophones, both in and outside Quebec, have lower levels of trust, and (2) Francophones outside Quebec share a similar level of trust with those in Quebec. This is to say that Francophones outside Quebec still retain their cultural heritage of being low trusters, despite living in provinces where people have more trust. Therefore, it seems that the use of language as an indicator of cultural influence also lends stronger support for the cultural theory of trust.

Fig. 6
figure 6

Predicated probabilities of saying most people can be trusted across ROC Anglophones, QC Anglophones, QC Francophones, and ROC Francophones (CGSS, 2013)

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In Fig. 6, we also see that QC Anglophones tend to have a lower trust than ROC Anglophones. This is likely due to the fact that QC Anglophones who grew up in Quebec were socialized within the dominant Francophone culture. Previously, Soroka et al. (2007a, b) find that moving to Quebec is likely to reduce a non-Francophone’s trust, suggesting that trust does respond to changing contexts. However, it is important to ask when did the “moving to Quebec” occur? If people moved to Quebec when they were very young or they have moved to Quebec for a very long time, their low trust might be shaped by the culture of the host place rather by their more immediate experiences. In fact, the culture theory would expect an acculturalization of trust among migrants who migrated as a child since they are more likely to be socialized within the destination culture, rather than the culture where their ancestral roots are.

7 Conclusion

In this article, I have tested whether less trusting Quebecers would become more trusting when they move to live in other parts of Canada where people are relatively more trusting and vice versa. My analysis of the 2014 Canadian General Social Survey shows that migration to a low or high trust place as an adult changes people’s trust very little. Quebecers who emigrated to ROC as an adult still show a lower level of trust than local ROC natives. ROC migrants who moved to Quebec as an adult still have a higher level of trust than local Quebecers. In addition, using data from the 2013 Canadian General Social Survey, I show that Francophones, both in and outside Quebec, tend to have lower trust than Anglophones. ROC Francophones do not seem to trust differently than Quebec Francophones. Taken together, findings of this research suggest that trust is acquired at an early age from cultural socialization and remains relatively stable in adulthood (Uslaner 2002; Stolle and Hooghe 2004; Dawson 2019; Wu 2020a).

The general conclusion of this study that trust is stabilized in pre-adulthood can be further supported by several other lines of literature. First, many studies have shown that contemporary social experiences including face to face interactions, associational life, and even victimization do not seem to have a significant impact on people’s trust (Uslaner 2002; Freitag 2003; Bauer 2015). For example, Bauer (2015) demonstrates that negative experiences including victimization have no effect on generalized trust across several waves of panel data. Second, panel data analyses show that from a longitudinal perspective basic trust patterns are established in pre-adulthood (e.g., Stolle and Hooghe 2004; Abdelzadeh and Lundberg 2017; Dawson 2019). For example, Stolle and Hooghe (2004) show that individuals’ trust levels at age 17 are strongly related to trust levels at age 34, suggesting that people’s trust is already in pace during adolescence and persists into adulthood. In Sweden, based on unique longitudinal data from five different cohorts of young people ranging in age from 13 to 28 years, Abdelzadeh and Lundberg (2017) find that while there is a greater degree of instability in trust between 13 and 15 years of age, trust appears to stabilize after age 15. Third, a growing body of literature has suggested that trust is a value transmitted intergenerationally from parents to children through familial socialization (e.g., Katz and Rotter 1969; Rotenberg 1995; Stolle and Nishikawa 2011; Dohmen et al. 2012; Guilietti et al. 2016). For example, Dohmen et al. (2012) show that trust attitudes are strongly and positively correlated between parents and children and that such correlations are unchanged with controls for personal and environmental characteristics. They suggest that people learn to trust from parents through socialization.

The weight of evidence indicates that trust is rooted in cultural socialization early in life. However, I must acknowledge that there is also evidence that suggests trust is malleable as people constantly adjust their trust according to social experiences collected through the life (e.g., Hardin 2002; Dinesen 2012a, b; Glanville et al. 2013; Paxton and Glanville 2015; Dinesen and Sønderskov 2018a, b). My additional analysis shows that Quebec migrants residing in the Atlantic region, closer to Quebec, seem to have more trust than Quebecers residing in the Prairie regions and British Columbia that are overwhelmingly English-speaking and far away from Quebec geographically. The fact that trust of Quebec migrants varies across different regions indicates that people’s trust might, to some extent, indeed respond to their social interactions in changing contexts.

To reconcile the divergent findings, there are several general points we might consider in future research. First, rather ask where does trust come from, it is essential to take a life course approach and ask when do people learn to trust in others. For example, in the case of researching how migration might change people’s trust, it is important to distinguish between child migration and adult migration. In studying how life experiences might affect trust, we will also need to separate between early life experiences and adult experiences (see also Wu 2020b). This is because life experiences at different time periods in life could have differential meanings and implications. Second, there is a need to pay attention to different forms of trust. Different forms of trust might have different origins. For example, while generalized trust is from cultural socialization, particularized trust might come from personal experiences (see also Wu and Wilkes 2016). Third, there is also a need to refine the measure of trust. One longstanding issue is whether trust measure is able to capture the same construct across respondents, time periods, cohorts as well as across cultures (Miller and Mitamura 2003; Robbins 2019). One limitation of this study is that we have no way to know whether French Canadians have the same interpretation of ‘strangers’ in mind as English Canadians when they respond to the question about their trust in strangers. Trust scholars will also need to be mindful of the cultural meanings of low or high trust. For example, Quebecers in Canada have lower levels of trust but being a low truster in Quebec could mean differently from being a low truster in other parts of the country. Therefore, the formation of trust might be context specific. Finally, it is also important to examine how people might be socialized differently across institutional contexts. For example, education has long been seen as affecting society through a socializing mechanism. However, Meyer (1977:75) has reminded us that we also need to study the effects of education as an institution considering “the contextual effects of variations in the extension and institutionalization of education” (Meyer 1977:76). More recently, Wu and Shi (2020) demonstrate that the socializing effect of education on trust is likely to vary across institutional contexts and thus, cultural socialization and institutional context might interact with each other to shape people’s trust in others.