Only 49% of 18–35-year-old Moroccans trust their government institutions, as opposed to 60% of individuals above the age of 35, according to a recent World Bank report.
Analyzing multiple surveys and findings regarding Moroccans’ trust dynamics towards different institutions, data showed that the younger the citizen is, the less likely they will trust institutions.
In addition to age group, It was found that trust levels also vary based on gender and income.
Only 48% of Moroccan women expressed trust in institutions compared to 62% of men, whereas for income groups, the study found a U-shaped relation between income and institutional trust: low-income and high-income groups have higher trust levels, while medium-income groups have lower trust levels in public institutions.
Other findings showed that not all public institutions benefit from the same levels of trust.
The study observed that Institutions tasked with ensuring law and order (justice, police, army) are endowed with higher levels of trust, compared to legislative institutions (the government, local governments, and parliament).
An interesting finding is that Moroccans trust local governments more than they trust the central government, which could be evidence of the social capital theory, that stipulates that the more people have a direct contact with an authority, the higher their trust towards it is.
In addition, there seems to be a strong link between societal and political trust, according to the output, as those who believe in societal trust also trust political institutions (67.7%), compared to the doubtful (40.5%), marking a significant gap.
Increased trust in institutions correlates with support for taxation, taxes are strongly linked to trust in representative institutions, as only 24.5% of individuals distrustful of the government are willing to pay higher redistributive taxes.
In comparison with other North African countries, Moroccans share more similarities in trust levels with Libya and Tunisia, while differing significantly from Egypt and Algeria.
Understanding trust dynamics between a population and the public institutions governing it remains imperative for citizens and experts to engage in a productive sociological and economic discourse for their collective future.
These dynamics may differ from one institution to another, and from one demographic group to another, which can radically transform the more researchers delve into the segmentation with granularity.
Multiple theories can produce conclusions and theories such as Social Cohesion in Low-Income Groups, Resource-Based Theory in High-Income Groups, Perceived Stability in High-Income Groups, and Relative Deprivation Theory within middle-income groups.
However, it is imperative to conduct local surveys, and studies, on other concepts such as political literacy within the same demographics, to be able to have certitude in determining the sociological reasons behind these trends.
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