New Data on the Black Wave

―The role of Village-Level Factors in Mortality―

April 25, 2013 6:30 PM (finished)


Daniel P. Aldrich

(Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Purdue University)

Date/Time April 25, 2013 6:30 PM
Location Room 549 5th floor, Akamon Sogo Kenkyuto, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo　 [map]
Abstract The consequences of the 3/11 compounded disaster were not distributed equally across the coastal towns, villages, and cities of the Tohoku region of Japan. Instead, the mortality rate due to the tsunami varied tremendously from zero to ten percent of the local residential population. What accounts for this variation remains a critical question for researchers to answer. This paper uses a new data set of roughly 300 villages along five coastal prefectures to untangle the factors connected to mortality during the disaster. With data on demographic, geophysical, infrastructure, social capital, political, and economic conditions, we find strong effects of tsunami characteristics, social capital measures, and demographic conditions. These findings have important policy implications for future disasters in Japan and abroad.
Bio Daniel P. Aldrich is an associate professor of political science at Purdue University who is on leave as a Fulbright research fellow at the University of Tokyo’s Economics Department for the academic year 2012-2013 and who was an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow at USAID during the 2011-2012 academic year. He is the author of two books (Site Fights and Building Resilience), 25 peer reviewed articles, and more than 60 reviews, OpEds, and articles for the general public. He is a board member of the journals Asian Politics and Policy and Risk Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy and a Mansfield U.S. Japan Network for the Future Alumnus. He is the section organizer for the American Political Science Association’s Disasters and Crises Related Group.