The relationship between experiencing a recession  during the formative years of an individual’s early  adulthood and their long-term sentiments  towards the EU

Are EU-sentiments and EU-fears exogenous? Or, do macroeconomic conditions when young play a critical role in the formation of an individual’s lifelong attitudes towards the EU? This paper assesses whether differences in individuals’ EU-sentiments can (partly) be attributed to variation in the macroeconomic environment experienced during the critical years of early adulthood. It finds that individuals who experience a recession when young are significantly less trustful towards the EU and its institutions, and that these individuals have significantly higher fears that the EU will erode social security and lead to loss of jobs, national identity and culture than cohorts who did not. To capture the effect of recessions on EU-sentiments, this paper exploits time and country variation in macroeconomic conditions using two different datasets, the European Values Study from 1990-2009 and the Eurobarometer from 2000-2019. It controls for a broad set of individual socio-economic...Show moreAre EU-sentiments and EU-fears exogenous? Or, do macroeconomic conditions when young play a critical role in the formation of an individual’s lifelong attitudes towards the EU? This paper assesses whether differences in individuals’ EU-sentiments can (partly) be attributed to variation in the macroeconomic environment experienced during the critical years of early adulthood. It finds that individuals who experience a recession when young are significantly less trustful towards the EU and its institutions, and that these individuals have significantly higher fears that the EU will erode social security and lead to loss of jobs, national identity and culture than cohorts who did not. To capture the effect of recessions on EU-sentiments, this paper exploits time and country variation in macroeconomic conditions using two different datasets, the European Values Study from 1990-2009 and the Eurobarometer from 2000-2019. It controls for a broad set of individual socio-economic characteristics, as well as for time, country, life-cycle, and cohort fixed effects. The results indicate that the deteriorating effect of experiencing recessions on individuals’ attitudes towards the EU is long-lasting.Show less

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The relationship between experiencing a recession during the formative years of an individual’s early adulthood and their long-term sentiments towards the EU