IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/15069.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Well-Being of Elderly Survivors after Natural Disasters: Measuring the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake

Author

Listed:
  • SUGANO Saki

Abstract

The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011 had a devastating impact on the northeastern part of Japan. In a quasi-experimental situation, using panel data collected six months after the earthquake from the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR), this study examines the causal effects of the disaster on both the economic and psychological well-being of elderly survivors affected by the earthquake and tsunami. The results show that the subjective well-being of female survivors in their 60s and of those who had high financial assets significantly dropped. However, people in the other age and gender brackets did not exhibit a significant diminishment in their life satisfaction in the aftermath of the earthquake. These latter results may be due partially to the early economic recovery experienced in the surveyed city six months after the earthquake.

Suggested Citation

  • SUGANO Saki, 2015. "The Well-Being of Elderly Survivors after Natural Disasters: Measuring the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake," Discussion papers 15069, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:15069
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/15e069.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gregori Baetschmann & Kevin E. Staub & Rainer Winkelmann, 2015. "Consistent estimation of the fixed effects ordered logit model," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 178(3), pages 685-703, June.
    2. Eiji Yamamura & Yoshiro Tsutsui & Chisako Yamane & Shoko Yamane & Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2015. "Trust and Happiness: Comparative Study Before and After the Great East Japan Earthquake," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 919-935, September.
    3. Easterlin, Richard A., 2006. "Life cycle happiness and its sources: Intersections of psychology, economics, and demography," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 463-482, August.
    4. Skoufias, Emmanuel, 2003. "Economic Crises and Natural Disasters: Coping Strategies and Policy Implications," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 1087-1102, July.
    5. Takuya Ishino & Akiko Kamesaka & Toshiya Murai & Masao Ogaki, 2014. "Effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake on Subjective Well-Being," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2014-010, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    6. Robert Metcalfe & Nattavudh Powdthavee & Paul Dolan, 2011. "Destruction and Distress: Using a Quasi‐Experiment to Show the Effects of the September 11 Attacks on Mental Well‐Being in the United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(550), pages 81-103, February.
    7. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2002. "Inverse probability weighted M-estimators for sample selection, attrition, and stratification," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 1(2), pages 117-139, August.
    8. Matsubayashi, Tetsuya & Sawada, Yasuyuki & Ueda, Michiko, 2013. "Natural disasters and suicide: Evidence from Japan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 126-133.
    9. Paxson, Christina H, 1992. "Using Weather Variability to Estimate the Response of Savings to Transitory Income in Thailand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 15-33, March.
    10. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2007. "Inverse probability weighted estimation for general missing data problems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 1281-1301, December.
    11. Robert Metcalfe & Nattavudh Powdthavee & Paul Dolan, "undated". "Destruction and distress: using a quasi-experiment to show the effects of the September 11 attacks on subjective well-being in the UK," Discussion Papers 09/10, Department of Economics, University of York.
    12. van den Berg, Bernard & Fiebig, Denzil G. & Hall, Jane, 2014. "Well-being losses due to care-giving," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 123-131.
    13. Fumio Ohtake & Katsunori Yamada, 2013. "Appraising the Unhappiness due to the Great East Japan Earthquake: Evidence from Weekly Panel Data on Subjective Well-being," ISER Discussion Paper 0876, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    14. Rehdanz, Katrin & Welsch, Heinz & Narita, Daiju & Okubo, Toshihiro, 2013. "Well-being effects of a major negative externality: The case of Fukushima," Kiel Working Papers 1855, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    15. Slesnick, Daniel T, 1993. "Gaining Ground: Poverty in the Postwar United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(1), pages 1-38, February.
    16. Yukiko Uchida & Yoshiaki Takahashi & Kentaro Kawahara, 2014. "Changes in Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being After a Severe Nationwide Disaster: The Case of the Great East Japan Earthquake," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 207-221, February.
    17. Ariel R. Belasen & Solomon W. Polachek, 2008. "How Hurricanes Affect Wages and Employment in Local Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 49-53, May.
    18. Dmitri Romanov & Asaf Zussman & Noam Zussman, 2012. "Does Terrorism Demoralize? Evidence from Israel," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 79(313), pages 183-198, January.
    19. Belasen, Ariel R. & Polachek, Solomon, 2008. "How Hurricanes Affect Employment and Wages in Local Labor Markets," IZA Discussion Papers 3407, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Chie Hanaoka & Hitoshi Shigeoka & Yasutora Watanabe, 2015. "Do Risk Preferences Change? Evidence from Panel Data before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake," NBER Working Papers 21400, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Abe, Naohito & Moriguchi, Chiaki & Inakura, Noriko, 2014. "The Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake on Commodity Prices: New Evidence from High-Frequency Scanner Data," Research Center for Price Dynamics Working Paper Series 12, Research Center for Price Dynamics, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    22. Frankenberg, E. & Friedman, J. & Gillespie, T. & Ingwersen, N. & Pynoos, R. & Rifai, I.U. & Sikoki, B. & Steinberg, A. & Sumantri, C. & Suriastini, W. & Thomas, D., 2008. "Mental health in Sumatra after the tsunami," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(9), pages 1671-1677.
    23. Rehdanz, Katrin & Welsch, Heinz & Narita, Daiju & Okubo, Toshihiro, 2015. "Well-being effects of a major natural disaster: The case of Fukushima," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 500-517.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sunbin Yoo & Junya Kumagai & Yuta Kawabata & Alexander Ryota Keeley & Shunsuke Managi, 2022. "Insuring Well-Being: Psychological Adaptation to Disasters," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 471-494, November.
    2. Anqi Li & Shiko Maruyama, 2024. "Who suffered most in the pandemic? A distribution regression analysis of happiness in Japan," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 75(4), pages 637-690, December.
    3. Xiao Zhou & Rui Zhen & Xinchun Wu, 2019. "Understanding the Relation between Gratitude and Life Satisfaction among Adolescents in a Post-Disaster Context: Mediating Roles of Social Support, Self-Esteem, and Hope," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(5), pages 1781-1795, October.
    4. Shuhei Kaneko & Haruko Noguchi, 2020. "Impacts of Natural Disaster on Changes in Parental and Children's Time Allocation: Evidence from the Great East Japan Earthquake," Working Papers 2006, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    5. Okuyama, Naoko & Inaba, Yoji, 2017. "Influence of natural disasters on social engagement and post-disaster well-being: The case of the Great East Japan Earthquake," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-13.
    6. MATSUMOTO Kodai, 2024. "Effects of Welfare Receipt on Well-being: Evidence from older people in Japan," Discussion papers 24039, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tiefenbach, Tim & Kohlbacher, Florian, 2015. "Disasters, donations, and tax law changes: Disentangling effects on subjective well-being by exploiting a natural experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 94-112.
    2. Jan Goebel & Christian Krekel & Tim Tiefenbach & Nicolas Ziebarth, 2015. "How natural disasters can affect environmental concerns, risk aversion, and even politics: evidence from Fukushima and three European countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(4), pages 1137-1180, October.
    3. Eiji Yamamura & Yoshiro Tsutsui & Chisako Yamane & Shoko Yamane & Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2015. "Trust and Happiness: Comparative Study Before and After the Great East Japan Earthquake," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 919-935, September.
    4. Fumio Ohtake & Katsunori Yamada & Shoko Yamane, 2016. "Appraising Unhappiness in the Wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 403-417, December.
    5. Tim Tiefenbach & Florian Kohlbacher, 2015. "Happiness in Japan in Times of Upheaval: Empirical Evidence from the National Survey on Lifestyle Preferences," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 333-366, April.
    6. Keita, Sekou & Schewe, Paul, 2021. "Out of sight, out of mind? Terror in the home country, family reunification options, and the well-being of refugees," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    7. Okuyama, Naoko & Inaba, Yoji, 2017. "Influence of natural disasters on social engagement and post-disaster well-being: The case of the Great East Japan Earthquake," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-13.
    8. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    9. Andrew E. Clark & Orla Doyle & Elena Stancanelli, 2017. "The Impact of Terrorism on Well-being: Evidence from the Boston Marathon Bombing," Working Papers 201717, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    10. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier & Elsayed, Ahmed, 2020. "Global terror, well-being and political attitudes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    11. Felix Richter & Malte Steenbeck & Markus Wilhelm, 2013. "Nuclear Accidents and Policy: Notes on Public Perception," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 590, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    12. Martina Kirchberger, 2014. "Natural Disasters and Labour Markets," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2014-19, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    13. Bryson, Alex & MacKerron, George, 2018. "How Does Terrorism Affect Individuals' Wellbeing?," IZA Discussion Papers 11273, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier & Elsayed, Ahmed, 2018. "Everybody's a Victim? Global Terror, Well-Being and Political Attitudes," Working Papers in Economics 733, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    15. Mirza, Daniel & Stancanelli, Elena & Verdier, Thierry, 2022. "Household expenditure in the wake of terrorism: Evidence from high frequency in-home-scanner data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    16. Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Natural disasters and their long-term effect on happiness: the case of the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake," MPRA Paper 37505, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Eiji Yamamura, 2015. "Impact of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the body mass index of children in Japan 2010-2014," ISER Discussion Paper 0941, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    18. Eiji Yamamura & Chisako Yamane & Shoko Yamane & Yoshiro Tsutsui, 2022. "Effect of major disasters on geographic mobility intentions: the case of the Fukushima nuclear accident," Chapters, in: Mark Skidmore (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Disasters, chapter 14, pages 275-291, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Yamamura, Eiji, 2016. "Impact of the Fukushima nuclear accident on obesity of children in Japan (2008–2014)," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 110-121.
    20. Jan Goebel & Christian Krekel & Tim Tiefenbach & Nicholas R. Ziebarth, 2014. "Natural Disaster, Environmental Concerns, Well-Being and Policy Action," CINCH Working Paper Series 1405, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:15069. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.