The most immediate impact of the transition was rapid impoverishment of the majority of the population. The Russian financial crisis of 1998 led to an estimated additional 20 million people sinking into poverty. The adult male mortality crisis is changing the gender balance throughout the region and will continue to change the landscape for future generations. This is the first time in the history of the modern world that highly industrialized nations face a reduction in life expectancy. Fewer healthy men and women are available to join the workforce, armies, or leadership positions.
Young people feel despair regarding the future.
The focus on economic, political, and legal reform are all important, but the social impact of the transition is the most critical, least researched, and least understood aspect of the last decade. Today's children will be the future leaders, professionals, and workers who must carry these countries into the next century, yet they are the sickest, most neglected, and most destitute sector of the population. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought a wave of western literature about the Soviet legacy and how difficult the transition to a new political culture would be. There is no question that in the social sphere, the legacy of the Soviet period had a crippling effect. But little has been done since the collapse of communism to recreate a social safety net that will protect children from the vagaries of a formless political transition, and in some countries outright neglect has resulted in a growing multitude of abandoned and homeless children.