How effective are the new type of rural communities with migrants against aggregate shocks? A Case Study of the 2015 Earthquake in Nepal

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 21H00701
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 07040:Economic policy-related
• Research Institution: Chiba University
• Principal Investigator: Tachibana Towa 千葉大学, 大学院社会科学研究院, 教授 (70301017)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 加治佐 敬 京都大学, 農学研究科, 教授 (50377131) ; 櫻井 武司 東京大学, 大学院農学生命科学研究科(農学部), 教授 (40343769)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 自然災害 / 長期効果 / 海外出稼ぎ / ネパール / 個票データ / 追跡調査

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Village communities have been implicitly providing safety nets to its member households hit by exogenous shocks such as accidents. Village communities usually cannot cope with aggregate shocks from, e.g., natural hazards that impact many of its members. Since the end of the last century, a new type of village communities, based on the network between the economic migrants abroad and their relatives staying behind, has been emerging. Such new communities may be able to cope with aggregate shocks. The purpose of this project is to compare the provision of safety nets against an aggregate shock between the traditional and the new type of communities. We do this by resurveying the current conditions of the victims of the 2015 Nepal earthquake.
Under the Covid-19, we contracted out the field surveys to our research partner in Nepal: Institute of Forestry. We completed the interviews of 710 households from 142 villages. It includes the households who migrated to urban areas.

Free Research Field

開発経済学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

経済学の諸研究は、住居の近接性に基づく伝統的村落共同体が、構成メンバーそれぞれを時に襲う個別ショックに対して暗黙の保険（助け合い）を提供していることを明らかにしました。一方、伝統的村落共同体は、構成メンバーの多くが同時に影響を受ける集計ショックに対しては、あまり機能しえないことも示されています。そのため、自然災害などの集計ショック時には、外部機関による村落支援が不可欠と考えられてきました。本研究は、海外への出稼ぎ者・移住者を多く持つ新形態の共同体が、理論上は集計ショックに対応できることに注目し、2015年ネパール大地震被災家計の経済状況を追跡調査することで、その理論の妥当性を検証する試みです。