Building Resilient Societies: The Role of Inherited Cultural Values Across Welfare Regimes

Hande Tugrul , Bocconi University
Arnstein Aassve, Bocconi University

As governments worldwide seek to strengthen societal resilience against mounting global challenges—from pandemics to climate change and forced displacement—a critical question emerges: why do some countries prove more resilient than others, even among those with similar economic development? While material resources and institutional capacity matter, this research argues that inherited cultural values represent an underexplored factor in shaping both government effectiveness and citizens' resilience capacity. Drawing on cross-national data measuring government effectiveness (World Bank) and individual-level resilience (European Social Survey), we examine how three dimensions of inherited cultural values—generalized trust, institutional trust, and religiosity—influence resilience outcomes across welfare regime contexts. Using an epidemiological approach to isolate the intergenerational component of these values, we test whether cultural predispositions transmitted across generations predict contemporary resilience. Our findings reveal that inherited trust values are positively associated with both government effectiveness and individual resilience, but these effects are substantially reduced once institutional characteristics are accounted for. Conversely, religiosity shows no direct effect on resilience outcomes, yet demonstrates significance within specific welfare regime types. These results suggest that while cultural values show initial associations with resilience, much of their apparent influence operates through or is explained by institutional arrangements. Institutional factors—particularly social expenditure and welfare regime design—emerge as key mechanisms through which societies build resilience. These findings carry important implications for policymakers: while inherited cultural orientations may create initial conditions for resilience, institutional investments remain the primary levers for strengthening societal capacity to withstand crises in an era of cascading global challenges.

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 Presented in Session 6. Demographic Change and the Making of European Welfare Policy