Worth pointing out that Finland is one of the most ethnically homogeneous societies in Europe - only ~10% of the population is of foreign origin and background [1]. So, like Japan, it's easier to have a high-trust society if you eschew immigration.
Edit: Just to be clear, I'm very pro-immigration. I just think that studying rich homogeneous societies doesn't result in many useful takeaways for countries like the USA.
Romania has very similar ethnically homogenous population at 89.3% [1] and I can definitely say that this factor does not directly lead to a high trust society. I suspect there are quite a few other countries with similar makeups that don't result in outcomes similar to Finland/Japan.
Finland was traditionally a very homogeneous society, and immigration before ~1990 was negligible. But then there was a burst of immigration from the former USSR and Somalia, followed by a gradual increase over the decades. And in 2023 (and likely in 2024), net immigration was >1% of the population and exceeded births.
No idea how it's relevant. For example in USA, I bet the overwhelming majority of homeless are citizens born in USA, not immigrants.
In my central European country with high ethnic homogenity the unhoused are also stemming from majority population. There is a Roma minority who are often struggling with poverty but are rarely unhoused.
> in USA, I bet the overwhelming majority of homeless are citizens born in USA, not immigrants
Correct.
"There was no significant difference in rates of lifetime adult homelessness between foreign-born adults and native-born adults (1.0% vs 1.7%). Foreign-born participants were less likely to have various mental and substance-use disorders, less likely to receive welfare, and less likely to have any lifetime incarceration." ("The foreign-born population was 46.2 million (13.9% of the total population)" in 2022 [2].)
This is extremely relevant. Finland is basically Sweden without mass migration. The cracks in our society that the multi-culti ideology has opened up is difficult for an American to comprehend, because you never experienced the benefits of a true monoculture.
You need a citation for you to understand people with similar customs/religious believes, similar dna have a higher trust society than a cities of unknown elements?
Yes. It sounds right, but many subtly wrong things often do. At the very least, a measurement of the effect strength would be nice. For instance, is a homogenous society a stronger or weaker signal than GDP?
Controversial, but worth considering. I believe societies have different capacities for assimilation (changing immigrants) and appropriation (changing themselves), with the hallmark of any era's great societies being their ability to maximise both.
That said, the evidence is mixed [1], with fairness and economic inequality [2][3] seeming to matter more than racial homogeneity. (Lots of tiny, racially-homogenous societies–high trust or not–bordering each other also have a one-way historical track record.)
A very often ignored fact is the cultural homogeneity. I do not thing racial homogeneity is of any benefit whatsoever, but I do believe that cultural is.
When someone raised in a culture where cheating to win by any means is acceptable (most of India) or where bartering, persuading and microfrauding in trade (most of Middle east and sup-sahara Africa) is not frowned upon, it is not a stretch to imagine that the introduction of such cultural elements will lead to dilution of the overall interpersonal trust in let's say, Swedish society.
Putnam indeed reported a correlation between the mean herfindahl index of ethnic homogeneity and trust in societies (both own-race trust, other race trust & neighbour trust).
If you had actually read the paper (which I have), you would realise that the relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust is inverse.
> Worth pointing out that Finland is one of the most ethnically homogeneous societies in Europe - only ~10% of the population is of foreign origin and background
Meh. They've got two different official languages. It's not as ethnically uniform as a lot of other European countries.
And the language is nevertheless recognized as one of the country's two official languages.
I just don't think Finland is a great example of what the post was talking about (a mythic country where everything works because it is an "ethnically homogenous high trust society" - although on reflection I'm not even sure what that all means). It's a way of lazily discounting what their government might or might not be achieving regarding homelessness, and it's not even true.
I'm not any sort of expert on Finland, but they have had some real political and social divides over the years and (I think?) nevertheless manage to care about the effectiveness of their welfare state. They'd appear to be a counterexample to the notion that everybody in a country needs to be the same in order for this stuff to work.
Is it boring reading about the meta or how something works. Understanding the inner workings of a system or society is something we can use as an outsider to the system.
Hearing that these opinions get downvoted helps explain why these comments were judged this way.
> Hearing that these opinions get downvoted helps explain why these comments were judged
HN greys and hides downvoted comments. The commentary adds nothing.
An analysis around why would have been interesting. It isn’t what that comment did. Nor what most comments complaining about downvoting do, for the simple reason that said comment is almost always stronger without the whining.
i think you've got it backwards- the xenophobia of so called 'high trust' bigots are holding back the global society of our future, and their low homelessness is in reality an unfair burden on other more troubled countries
Edit: Just to be clear, I'm very pro-immigration. I just think that studying rich homogeneous societies doesn't result in many useful takeaways for countries like the USA.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Finland#:~:tex....