Climate Disasters and Subjective Well-Being among Urban and Rural Residents in Indonesia

Abstract

Climate disasters pose a risk to residents’ well-being globally. However, information about the impact of climate disasters among urban and rural residents remains lacking, especially in Indonesia. This study aims to fill the gap by investigating the impact of climate disaster on subjective well-being based on urban and rural typology model. The data were cross-sectional, involving 7110 Indonesian residents who had experienced climate disasters, 3813 from urban areas and 3297 from rural areas. An ordered probit model was employed to estimate the impact of climate disasters on subjective well-being (i.e., happiness and life satisfaction). In general, the empirical results show that climate disasters do not significantly affect the happiness of Indonesian residents, but they significantly and negatively impact their life satisfaction. Further analysis reveals that climate disasters impact urban and rural residents differently. The subjective well-being of rural residents is more severely affected than those living in urban areas. Further estimation also indicated that climate disaster significantly reduces residents’ subjective well-being at the lowest income level for both rural and urban residents. Our finding confirms that rural residents remain the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.