IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-18-00770.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Violent conflict and unhappiness: evidence from the 2016 ‘Life in Transition' III surve

Author

Listed:
  • Maksym Obrizan

    (Kyiv School of Economics, Kyiv, Ukraine)

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of violence on happiness in 14 countries affected by recent conflicts, using data from the ‘Life in Transition' III survey conducted in 2016 by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank in all transition countries from a former Eastern Bloc (except for Turkmenistan). Out of 19,081 observations with non-missing responses, 2,605 (or 13.7%) households have been affected by some form of violence. When each of the three violence indicators – physical injury, having a household member killed or living in a household displaced due to a conflict – is entered separately, the probability of being happy reduces by 6.3-8.2% points depending on the type of violence. When three violence indicators are added at once, and also in some robustness checks, it is only forced displacement that has a statistically significant negative effect on happiness. These results indicate that violence has a prolonged and substantial negative effect on life satisfaction, given that many of the conflicts started 20 years ago or more.

Suggested Citation

  • Maksym Obrizan, 2019. "Violent conflict and unhappiness: evidence from the 2016 ‘Life in Transition' III surve," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(1), pages 192-199.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-18-00770
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2019/Volume39/EB-19-V39-I1-P20.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Van Praag, Bernard M.S. & Romanov, Dmitri & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada, 2010. "Happiness and financial satisfaction in Israel: Effects of religiosity, ethnicity, and war," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1008-1020, December.
    2. Djankov, Simeon & Nikolova, Elena & Zilinsky, Jan, 2016. "The happiness gap in Eastern Europe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 108-124.
    3. Olga Shemyakina & Anke Plagnol, 2013. "Subjective Well-Being and Armed Conflict: Evidence from Bosnia-Herzegovina," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 1129-1152, September.
    4. Coupe, Tom & Obrizan, Maksym, 2016. "The impact of war on happiness: The case of Ukraine," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 228-242.
    5. Torosyan, Karine & Pignatti, Norberto & Obrizan, Maksym, 2018. "Job market outcomes for IDPs: The case of Georgia," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 800-820.
    6. Guriev, Sergei & Melnikov, Nikita, 2018. "Happiness convergence in transition countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 683-707.
    7. Habibov, Nazim & Cheung, Alex, 2017. "Revisiting informal payments in 29 transitional countries: The scale and socio-economic correlates," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 28-37.
    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4srj73kg79978qkvocpskj1tvb is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Heinz Welsch, 2008. "The Social Costs of Civil Conflict: Evidence from Surveys of Happiness," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 320-340, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tom Coupé & Maksym Obrizan, 2024. "War and Happiness," Working Papers in Economics 24/06, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tom Coupé & Maksym Obrizan, 2024. "War and Happiness," Working Papers in Economics 24/06, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    2. Coupe, Tom & Obrizan, Maksym, 2016. "The impact of war on happiness: The case of Ukraine," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 228-242.
    3. Osiichuk, Maryna & Shepotylo, Oleksandr, 2020. "Conflict and well-being of civilians: The case of the Russian-Ukrainian hybrid war," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(1).
    4. Jose Roberto Balmori de la Miyar, 2020. "Breaking sad: drug-related homicides and mental well-being in Mexico," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 67(4), pages 513-531, December.
    5. Anastasia, Giacomo & Boeri, Tito & Kudlyak, Marianna & Zholud, Oleksandr, 2022. "The Labor Market in Ukraine: Rebuild Better," IZA Policy Papers 196, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan & Sven Fischer, 2023. "The Effect of the “Woman Life Freedom” Protests on Life Satisfaction in Iran: Evidence from Survey Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 10643, CESifo.
    7. Djankov, Simeon & Nikolova, Elena, 2018. "Communism as the unhappy coming," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 708-721.
    8. Gokmen, Gunes & Yakovlev, Evgeny, 2018. "War and well-being in transition: Evidence from two natural experiments," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 788-799.
    9. Maksym Obrizan, 2020. "Transition welfare gaps: One closed, another to follow?," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(4), pages 621-635, October.
    10. Alícia Adserà & Francesca Dalla Pozza & Sergei Guriev & Lukas Kleine-Rueschkamp & Elena Nikolova, 2021. "Height and well-being during the transition from plan to market," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 36(105), pages 77-120.
    11. Coupe, Tom & Obrizan, Maksym, 2018. "Adolescents’ (un)happiness in transition," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 858-873.
    12. Obrizan, Maksym, 2019. "Diverging trends in health care use between 2010 and 2016: Evidence from three groups of transition countries," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 19-29.
    13. Maksym Obrizan, 2022. "Poverty, Unemployment and Displacement in Ukraine: three months into the war," Papers 2211.05628, arXiv.org.
    14. Obrizan, Maksym, 2017. "Does EU membership prevent crowding out of public health care? Evidence from 28 transition countries," MPRA Paper 81708, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Gunes Gokmen & Evgeny Yakovlev, 2017. "War and Well-Being in Transition: Russo-Georgian Conflict as a Natural Experiment," Working Papers w0243, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    16. Swee, Eik Leong & Zhan, Haikun & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2021. "Do perceptions of economic well-being predict the onset of war and peace?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    17. Sara Kijewski, 2020. "Life Satisfaction Sixty Years after World War II: the Lasting Impact of War Across Generations," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 15(5), pages 1253-1284, November.
    18. Elvisa Drishti & Zamira Shkreli & Edvin Zhllima & Blendi Gerdoçi, 2023. "Deprivation, Social Mobility Considerations, and Life Satisfaction: A Comparative Study of 33 European Countries," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(3), pages 511-550, September.
    19. Vedran Recher, 2022. "History Matters: Life Satisfaction in Transition Countries," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 171-193, January.
    20. Tymofii Brik & Maksym Obrizan, 2024. "Gender Gap in Urban Job Market During the Pandemic: The Case of Ukraine," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 66(2), pages 215-235, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    happiness; violence; conflict; life in transition; LiTS;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-18-00770. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.