Multiple membership configurations and trust formation: Structural precarity in highly unequal societies

Why does associational life often fail to translate into generalized trust in highly unequal societies? We argue that the answer lies not in participation levels per se, but in the configuration and durability of memberships across organizational domains. Cross-cutting portfolios that bridge social spheres can generate the heterogeneous relational exposure that contact-based accounts of trust require, yet in unequal contexts these portfolios are structurally precarious. Using three waves of the Chilean Longitudinal Social Survey (ELSOC, 2016–2022; n = 1,304), we classify time-varying membership portfolios into three positions—associational isolation (alpha), within-domain clustering (beta), and cross-domain bridging (gamma)—and estimate their association with generalized and neighborhood trust in random-effects probit panel models. Bridging is consistently associated with the highest trust; trust radii differ by position, with clustering approaching bridging for neighborhood trust but diverging sharply for generalized trust. More consequentially, bridging is the least durable position (P(gamma at t+1 | gamma at t) = 0.31 versus 0.61 for clustering), and its instability exhibits a sharp socioeconomic gradient: higher education predicts retention in gamma but higher exit from alpha and beta, a reversal consistent with structural precarity rather than generic resource effects on participation. These findings recast the association–trust puzzle as a problem of structural durability rather than associational density.