Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/227377 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13850
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study the effect of exposure to communism (EC), a political-economic regime based on collectivist planning, on preferences for family supports, which we refer to as 'informal family insurance'. We exploit both cross-country and cohort variation in EC in a large sample of Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC). Against the backdrop that 'communism gives rise to the abolition of the family', we find robust evidence that EC strengthens the preference for family insurance which coexists with a stronger preference for social insurance. We find a six per cent increase in preferences for care to older parents and a four per cent increase in preferences for support to pre-school children and financial support to adult children. These effects are explained by the erosion of both generalized trust and the lower confidence in public institutions, suggesting that (raising uncertainty and adversity during) communism increased the demand for all types of available insurance.
Subjects: 
informal family insurance
family networks
social insurance
interpersonal trust
confidence in institutions
Soviet communism
Eastern Europe
JEL: 
Z1
P3
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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