Impacts of Tropical Cyclones on Employment—An Analysis Based on Meta-regression

Abstract

Tropical cyclones are one of the serious environmental disasters. However, researcher’s opinions are divided as to the impacts of tropical cyclones on labor employment. In order to investigate the general principle of tropical cyclones’ impact on employment, explore the reason of the divergence among existing research conclusions and put forward some suggestions for post-disaster reconstruction, this paper employed quantitative analysis of the literature—meta-regression analysis based on the existing literature. This paper studies the impact of tropical cyclones on the quantity of labor employed and employee remuneration from four aspects: industry dimension, time dimension, income dimension and tropical cyclone intensity, which clarifies the impact direction and intensity of the disaster in each dimension. The results show that: (1) Tropical cyclone disasters have greater impact on the employment of the primary industry, that is, the primary industry suffers the heaviest loss of employee remuneration. The impact of tropical cyclones on the employment quantity in the second and tertiary industries is greater, and the impact on the secondary industry is greater than the tertiary industry. (2) In the short term, the impact of tropical cyclones on employment is negative and the impact intensity is strong; in the medium and long term, the impact is positive and the intensity of impact is decreasing. Thus, through post-disaster restoration and reconstruction, the negative impact of tropical cyclones on the employment is gradually reduced. (3) Although Tropical cyclone disasters increased the quantity of labor employed from the low-income groups, it reduces their employment remuneration. In addition, the impact of disasters on the employment number of high-income groups is relatively small compared to that of low-income groups. (4) The higher the category of the tropical cyclone, the greater the positive impact on the employment of labor force. In the final part of the paper, the causes of these phenomena are analyzed, and suggestions are given on how to carry out post-disaster restoration and reconstruction activities. This paper is a useful supplement to the study of natural disasters’ impact on employment. The conclusions can provide reference for the emergency management of the disaster and the improvement of the labor market.