%0 Report
        %A Costa-Font, Joan
%A Nicinska, Anna
%A Roig, Melcior Rossello
        %T Equal Before Luck? Well-Being Consequences of Personal Deprivation and Transition
        %D 2025
        %8 2025 Mar
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 17780
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp17780
        %X Past trauma resulting from personal life shocks, especially during periods of particular volatility, such as regime transition (or regime change), can give rise to significant long-lasting effects on people's health and well-being. We study this question by drawing on longitudinal and retrospective data to examine the effect of past exposure to major individual-level shocks (specifically hunger, persecution, dispossession, and exceptional stress) on current measures of an individual's health and mental well-being. We study the effect of the timing of the personal shocks, alongside the additional effect of 'institutional uncertainty' of regime change in post-communist European countries. Our findings are as follows: First, we document evidence of the detrimental effects of shocks on a series of relevant health and well-being outcomes. Second, we show evidence of more pronounced detrimental consequences of such personal shocks experienced by individuals living in formerly communist countries (which accrue to about 8% and 10% in the case of hunger and persecution, respectively) than in non-communist countries. The effects are robust and take place in addition to the direct effects of regime change and shocks.
        %K transition shocks
%K Soviet communism
%K later life health
%K health care system