Arpino, B;
Conzo, P;
Salustri, F;
(2021)
I am a survivor, keep on surviving: early-life exposure to conflict and subjective survival probabilities in adult life.
Journal of Population Economics
10.1007/s00148-021-00859-w.
(In press).
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Abstract
Life-course studies have shown that early-life conditions predict health and socio-economic status in adult life. This study analyzes whether experiencing a traumatic event in childhood, i.e., the Second World War (WW2), affects subjective survival probabilities (SSPs). We rely on a representative sample of European adults who were differentially exposed to WW2 during childhood as a result of their date and place of birth. Results show that exposure to WW2 increases SSPs, with socio-economic and health characteristics not playing a mediating role. War exposure also counterbalances the adverse effects of health impairments on SSPs, but it does not affect health outcomes per se. This fact, jointly with low mortality rates of the cohort under investigation, suggests that selective mortality and post-traumatic stress are not the main channels. Instead, the results support the hypothesis that personal growth and life appreciation emerge after traumatic events, thereby leading to optimistic perceptions of longevity.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | I am a survivor, keep on surviving: early-life exposure to conflict and subjective survival probabilities in adult life |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s00148-021-00859-w |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00859-w |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Childhood conditions, Subjective survival probabilities, Second World War, Post-traumatic growth, Life-course approach, PTSD, Europe, POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER, GERMAN CHILD SOLDIERS, QUALITY-OF-LIFE, MORTALITY EXPECTATIONS, PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS, PREDICTIVE-VALIDITY, HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS, NORWEGIAN CHILDREN, POLITICAL VIOLENCE, GROWING-UP |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10130694 |
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