The Protective Role of Country-level Social Capital for Mental Health During Large-scale Crises

Although the COVID-19 pandemic increased psychological distress globally, not all countries experienced the same mental health burden. This study investigates one potential driver of cross-national heterogeneity in pandemic mental health outcomes: country-level social capital. In particular, it explores whether pre-pandemic country-level social capital—generalized trust, personal/family relationships, and civic/social participation—buffered the mental health impacts of mixing/mobility restrictions, measured using high-frequency Google mobility data. Focusing on developed economies, two individual-level datasets are analyzed: a four-wave panel (n = 10 countries) and a cross-sectional survey spanning a near-complete sample of all developed economies (n = 34 countries). Hierarchical modeling shows increasing country-level immobility predicts heightened individual-level psychological distress, but this association is significantly weaker in higher-social-capital societies, particularly those with higher civic/social participation. Mediation analysis indicates that social capital attenuated two key pathways linking immobility to distress—greater loneliness and reduced satisfaction with governments’ handling of the pandemic—which accounts for nearly half of the apparent cushioning role of country-level social capital. Longitudinal modeling provides more causally robust evidence, while a cross-sectional replication across a near-complete sample of developed economies indicates generalizability. Findings suggest elements of country-level social capital may be a vital contextual resource fostering societal resilience during (trans-)national crises.