How natural hazards impact the social environment for vulnerable groups: an empirical investigation in Japan

Maoxin Ye () and Daniel P. Aldrich ()
Additional contact information
Maoxin Ye: Southeast University
Daniel P. Aldrich: Northeastern University

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2021, vol. 105, issue 1, No 4, 67-81

Abstract: Abstract Much research has demonstrated that vulnerable people fare more poorly than non-vulnerable ones in disasters and crises across a variety of outcomes—including mental and physical health, disaster aid received, re-housing processes, and overall satisfaction with recovery. But little is known about how natural hazards change the social and political environment for those vulnerable groups. Some have argued that shocks raise the consciousness of civil society and decision makers so that conditions improve for vulnerable groups, while others believe that disasters have little or even negative impact on their status in society. This paper uses a new panel dataset across 17 years (1999 through 2015) of Japan’s 47 prefectures to investigate how disasters impact discrimination rates for vulnerable groups, including women, the elderly, foreigners, and those with disabilities. Controlling for demographic and social factors, we find that disasters actually reduce discrimination against certain vulnerable groups—especially women and the elderly—while having no measurable impact on discrimination against other groups—foreigners and the disabled. These results bring with them important policy recommendations for local residents, disaster managers, and decision makers.

Keywords: Discrimination; Japan; Natural hazards; Social environment; Vulnerable groups (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-020-04295-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:105:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s11069-020-04295-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-020-04295-z

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().