ARE YOU PANICKED? ECONOMIC AND HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS: A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH IN ROMANIAN CONTEXT

During the last few years the entire world experienced one of the most turmoil period in its history. Economic crisis is the most traumatic event leading to a substantial deterioration in the quality of life of the household. Unemployment, inflation rate increasing, freezing or decreasing of the wages, the purchasing power decreasing, the decreasing of the investments value represent only of some economic shocks that hit most of the individuals, in the last few years. The individual well-being is determinate by many things like the level and secure income, labor market status, job stability and characteristics, health status, social relationships, family etc. In some ways and to a different extent all these were affected by the economic crisis, for many people, around the world. Empirical evidence presented in different international studies emphasized a causal relation between all these aspects. The propose of the present study was to identify the economic and health consequences of the economic crisis adopting a psychological perspective. The results of the study emphasize that there is a causal relationship between psychological factors and almost all the dimensions of economic behavior and health status measured. Also, the empirical findings uphold that those who are more risk averse and have the highest perception over the risk exposure are taping the highest values regarding the main stressors measured and present more intense symptoms of stress exposure. The limits of the study come from the fact that health consequences were measured in certain period of time (the last six months), thus, this study do not offer a long term evaluation.