Chronic vulnerability to natural disasters and subjective well-being

Abstract

Natural disasters are highly adverse and unpredictable, which imposes great demands on people living with chronic vulnerability to natural disasters. The present study examined the relation between societal chronic vulnerability to natural disasters and individuals’ subjective well-being, including happiness and life satisfaction. We analyzed the data from three large-scale surveys with nationally representative samples, which included the World Values Survey (Wave 6) with participants from over 50 nations and the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey in 2012 and 2014 with participants from different regions in China. Generally, the results using these three large-scale datasets found that greater societal chronic vulnerability to natural disasters predicted greater happiness at the individual level in the three datasets. In contrast, the positive relation between societal chronic vulnerability to natural disasters and individuals’ life satisfaction was less consistent across the datasets. The results highlight the importance of distinguishing the influence of different types of ecological threats on individuals’ subjective well-being.

Keywords

• Natural disasters
• Chronic vulnerability
• Subjective well-being
• Happiness
• Life satisfaction