Sustainable Livelihood Recovery after the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in China

A mega-earthquake hit Southwest China in 2008, causing thousands of deaths and billions of economic losses. Along with the severe damages, development opportunities emerged in the recovery process. This paper examines the disaster impact and recovery in terms of livelihoods assets at the household level. Information from 415 households was collected as a two-wave panel data for analysis. Data was collected eight months after the disaster, and another follow-up survey was conducted in the summer of 2012. The results indicate improvement in terms of physical, financial, natural, human, and social capitals. With an increase of livelihood assets, inequality of financial capital and physical capital actually enlarged in the recovery process, but the gap of social capital decreased.

Meanwhile, the livelihood strategy changes within the families are also reported and analyzed.