Cumulative Damage of Disasters and Social Vulnerability: Kumamoto Earthquake, Takeo Flood, and the Pandemic

In this paper I propose a middle range theory of social vulnerability as a sociological analysis framework for disaster study, and conduct an empirical analysis for two different survey data collected in Kumamoto city (Kumamoto Prefecture) in 2021 and Takeo city (Saga Prefecture) in 2022. While Kumamoto survey focuses on 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake, dose Takeo survey on 2021 North Kyushu Torrential Rain and flood. Moreover, these surveys commonly include some questions about correspondence to the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Damage’ by natural disaster, and by the pandemic as well can be seen as manifestation of vulnerability that has already constructed in the society. In this sense, the pandemic can be similarly treated as disasters, and it is possible to consider cumulative damages between the natural disasters and the pandemic. Sociologically important respect of social vulnerability is the one that is structurally woven in social stratification. In order to identify where social vulnerability exists in social stratification, by utilizing odds ratio for the main analysis tool, I examine the relationship between disaster damages and social stratification variables as sex, age, education, employment status, occupation, and household income. Results show that, beyond differences of urbanization conditions and disaster type between two cities, damages are generally connected with low education, non-regular employment, and low household income, which suggest that social vulnerability are mostly woven in lower strata. Occupations in service sector is another general index of vulnerability and it may be due to strong impact of the pandemic on food and beverage industry. On the other hand, in regard with gender and age, some peculiar connection patterns are noticed in each city. More investigation of regional stratification structure is required to identify what vulnerability these patterns in fact indicate.