Research On Rural Households' Economic Losses And Coping Strategy In "5.12" Wenchuan Earthquake

"5.12" Wenchuan earthquake is since the founding of the People's Republic of China the most devastating and the largest scope of an earthquake,resulting in heavy casualties,housing collapse,traffic disruption,schools,hospitals and other infrastructures severely damaged,severely affecting the normal production and living of farmers.Especially in rural areas with poor infrastructure and weak capacity against the risks,when a huge earthquake disaster happens,the rural households due to the lack of formal risk management institutional arrangements and risk management tools,are extremely vulnerable to the adverse impact and influence of the seismic hazard,which will lead to the problems of poverty and education,medical and health issues and problems of agricultural production inputs so on.Government assistance in relation to losses suffered by rural households can only be a drop in the bucket.The vulnerable rural households have to develop various strategies to enhance self-protection and reduce the impact on their own livelihoods.Therefore scientifically assessing the economic losses and the impact of the rural households and observing various coping strategies the rural households adapted have a positive significance for current and future post-disaster relief, reconstruction and economic development.On the basis of a comprehensive review of domestic and international disasters economics and risk management theory,the paper selects 450 rural households from 5 earthquake-stricken counties in Sichuan Province for the study,reasonably estimates their earthquake direct economic losses,and on this basis,tries to use principal component analysis to evaluate the capacity against disaster;Secondly,by describing the economic losses by earthquake,individual characteristics and economic situation,the paper based on the binary logistic model analyses and concludes different determinants of different coping strategies of rural households;Thirdly,the paper analyses these factors' impacts on post-disaster consumption behavior,and puts forward some suggestions for currently and in future coping with natural disasters and building formal social security network.In this paper,the following conclusions are drawn:(1) The earthquake caused severe economic losses,the amount of which is too high relative to the family income.It is highly possible to make farmers into the poverty trap. In Wenchuan earthquake the average amount of rural households' property losses adds up to 46,464yuan,especially which toppling the house is 59,470yuan,while the average annual income of rural households in earthquake-stricken areas is only 16,140yuan. Without government assistance,even if the rural household doesn't eat and drink,they also have to spend 2 or 3 years in order to return to pre-earthquake living standard.(2) The article analyzes the determinants on rural households' coping strategies in earthquake-stricken areas by binary logistic model.The main factors of rural households' coping strategies are:place,age,education,family size,economic status,losses.And dissaving was positively correlated with age and household income;loans between relatives and friends were negatively correlated with family size and income;bank loans were negatively correlated with age,positively with the overall loss;migrant working was negatively correlated with the education,positively with the overall losses.(3) Through the statistical analysis of post-disaster rural households' consumption behavior,the family characteristics of rural households do not have a significant impact on consumption behavior.The greater the losses suffered by farmers,the more inclined to increase expense.As for coping strategy,their own savings have been unable to deal with the losses;rural household have to seek outside help such as loans or transfers from relatives and friends and bank loans.Bank loans are the preferred strategy of the majority of farmers.The reason is that because the earthquake damaged systematically the whole community and the wider region outside the community,the majority of farmers,their relatives and friends have been seriously affected.Risk hasn't resolved and transferred in the extended family and the communities,and the internal strategy of rural household has basically failed.They can only rely on formal financial institutions.However,if farmers can receive help from relatives and friends,the effect of loans from relatives and friends is superior to bank loans because bank loans will undoubtedly increase the debt burden of farmers,which is only a substitute alternative without loans from relatives and friends.