Paths of a Generation: From Socialist Up-Bringing to Post-Socialist Adulthood

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

Over the last decade, the USSR has split into 15 new independent countries with distinct borders, varying kinds and levels of resources, diverse political and economic regimes, and different degrees of success and failure in meeting the challenges of post-socialism. Within every new country, though to varying degrees, the old command economy and party-state have undergone substantial change and the environment shaping people's lives has become radically different. This transition from a rather uniform social space to a new and diverse social landscape offers a unique natural experiment, and an unprecedented opportunity to understand why some people are successful in taking advantage of new emerging economic opportunities, whereas others fail to cope with the new environment, experience downward mobility, become impoverished, and develop pessimistic and negative views about their life and the new social world. This study takes advantage of the opportunity to study these changes using a unique data set. The "Paths of a Generation" surveys have followed samples of a cohort of adolescents since shortly before secondary school graduation. The first wave of interviews in 1983-1984 was followed by a second wave in 1988-89 during the declining days of the USSR, a third wave in 1993-1994 in the early years of the post-socialist period, and a fourth wave in 1997-1999 when the adolescents had reached young adulthood. The surveys contain data on roughly 13,000 respondents in seven diverse post-Soviet countries. The project analyzes these data by considering how social background and early life experiences affect later employment, income, and material well being of this generation during a period of rapid change from socialism to capitalism.