Long-term Social Capital Formation After Natural Disasters

As a consequence of climate change, natural disasters are becoming increasingly common, as evidenced by a recent UN report highlighting a five-fold increase in the frequency of climate and weather-related disasters from 1970 to 2019. Previous research has underscored the pivotal role of social capital in relation to natural disasters, influencing phenomena such as resilience, mortality, and rebuilding. This paper aims to investigate the long-term formation of social capital among Swedish survivors of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami that struck South-East Asia. Social capital is conceptually divided into two categories: bonding and bridging. Bonding social capital pertains to strong ties within a specific group, fostering a sense of identity and mutual support. In contrast, bridging social capital focuses on weaker ties that connect different groups, promoting diversity and facilitating the flow of information and resources across social boundaries. We present the first large-scale, individual-level, and long-term study of the impact of natural disasters on social capital. To do this, we rely on two data sources. First, we utilize unique and detailed individual-level administrative data of approximately 16,000 Swedish tourists who survived the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that hit South-East Asia. We match this data against other individuals in the entire Swedish population registry on several pre-tsunami characteristics, allowing us to better isolate the effect of disaster exposure on measures of long-term social capital – collected via a survey. The survey is administered to 10,000 individuals in our data (half of which were exposed to the tsunami), allowing for more nuanced measures of social capital and control variables, including exposure severity to the tsunami. In combination, these data allow us to study the long-term effect of natural disaster exposure on social capital in a completely novel and unique way. Specifically, when examining measures of social capital that include fine-grained measures of both bonding and bridging, we observe that those exposed to the Tsunami exhibit lower levels of bonding social capital but a higher degree of bridging social capital. This paper advances our understanding of social capital formation following crisis in several ways. First, by focusing our study on tourists, we can isolate social capital formation stemming from the individual trauma of the experience. Prior research has connected the change in social capital to other processes such as rebuilding. Second, natural disasters are important political events that have long-term consequences for individuals and politics in general. This is the first study that is able to examine long-term social capital formation in the wake of natural disasters. The intensity and frequency of natural disasters are set to increase with the intensification of the climate crisis. Understanding how and why we are affected by these events is crucial for society to meet the challenges posed by these changes.