Citation

Lee J. Disasters 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Visiting Assistant Professor, Government and Law Department, Lafayette College, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/disa.12410

PMID

31583735

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the multilevel effects of natural hazards on trust in Chinese society. Using the Chinese General Social Survey conducted in 2012 as well as provincial disaster damage records, the study examined how individuals' past experiences of disasters and province-level damage (measured by the number of affected people, deaths, and economic loss) are associated with various forms of trust: in-group, out-group, generalized, and political trust. The results indicate that Chinese individuals with experience of disaster demonstrate higher levels of out-group trust but lower levels of political trust. Similarly, at the province level, damage from the previous 3 years of disaster events (2009-2011) was positively associated with residents' out-group trust while negatively affecting their political trust. However, when provincial damage was aggregated for the past 5 years of disasters (2007-2011), which included the historic Sichuan earthquake of 2008, only total deaths showed a positive effect on generalized trust. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

China; Disaster; natural hazards; political trust; social trust