USSR, education, work history, fertility choices, and later-life outcomes

Telmo Juan Pérez Izquierdo and Elizaveta Pronkina

UC3M Working papers. Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía

Abstract: This paper investigates how living under the USSR affected the life decisions of East European individuals. We use the retrospective SHARELIFE data to analyze respondents' choices from 1950 to 1990. In particular, we compare the reported choices of individuals in Lithuania (former-USSR) and Poland (former-Soviet Bloc), exploiting the common history of both countries until the end of the Second World War. We find that Lithuanian women increased educational attainments and accumulated 2 plus years of working experience by age 50 relative to Polish women. Moreover, we describe the indirect effect that improved working opportunities have on female education. We can identify this effect by looking at differential outcomes for men and women in the two countries. Similar findings hold once we compare all Baltic countries (former-USSR) toall Soviet Bloc countries and East to West Germany. Finally, we also observe a higher number of marriages during life and selective abortion based on the future child's gender under the USSR. These findings suggest that policies implemented in Socialist countries varied, and regimes affected individuals differently.

Keywords: USSR; Socialism; Central; And; Eastern; Europe; Education; Female; Employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 J13 J16 J21 J24 N34 P36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-his, nep-lab and nep-tra
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cte:werepe:30663

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