Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/216375 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13063
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Understanding who in the population is psychologically resilient in the face of major life events, and who is not, is important for policies that target reductions in disadvantage. In this paper we construct a measure of adult resilience, document its distribution, and test its predictability by childhood socioeconomic circumstances. We use a dynamic finite mixture model applied to 17 years of panel data, and focus on the psychological reaction to ten major adverse life events. These include serious illness, major financial events, redundancy and crime victimisation. Our model accounts for nonrandom selection into events, anticipation of events, and differences between individuals in the immediate response and the speed of adaptation. We find considerable heterogeneity in the response to adverse events, and that resilience is strongly correlated with clinical measures of mental health. Resilience in adulthood is predictable by childhood socioeconomic circumstances; the strongest predictor is good childhood health.
Subjects: 
psychological resilience
major life events
non-cognitive skills
childhood
panel data
mixture model
JEL: 
I10
C2
C5
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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