The Longitudinal Effect of Pre-war Investments in Hedonic Capital on Wartime Well-Being

There is a gap in our understanding of people’s longitudinal emotional reactions before and during an ongoing war. The paper analyzes the impact of the Iron Swords War between Israel and Hamas on measures of Israelis’ subjective well-being, including fear and anxiety. Two questions are probed: (1) How are the affective components—negative and positive emotions—which tend to fluctuate, and the more stable components—global life evaluation and meaning in life—affected by war? (2) What protects people’s subjective well-being in wartime? Unique longitudinal data from 1189 individuals who reported their subjective well-being before and during the war is employed. The participants reported their pre-war investments in hedonic capital, including efforts in six life domains—health, friends, community, active leisure, the value of work per se, and work-life balance—as well as their religiosity level. Both our questions are addressed by the results. First, all subjective well-being components worsened significantly during the war compared to pre-war measures. Evaluation of life decreased by 9.6%; meaning decreased by 2.8%, positive emotions decreased by 25.5%, and negative emotions increased by 85.9%. Second, regression analysis demonstrates that all of the pre-war efforts investigated, except those allocated to improving work-life balance and active leisure, have a longitudinal effect on at least one component of subjective well-being during war. Effort at work significantly affects both meaning (p < 0.01) and positive emotions (p < 0.05). Effort within the community significantly affects negative emotions (p < 0.01). Effort in friendships significantly affects positive emotions (p < 0.01), while effort in health significantly affects meaning (p < 0.05). The results are robust for unmet expectations, socio-demographics and objective war-related control factors. Pre-war religiosity longitudinally affects all war-time subjective well-being components, a result which was also found in a difference-in-difference analysis.