This paper summarizes findings from life recovery surveys conducted in 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2005 among 1995 Kobe earthquake survivors. The 1999 survey (N=915) developed some of the key scales for the project, including life recovery, physical and psychological stress, family relations, and civic-mindedness. The 2001 study (N=1203) integrated 1999 study findings and those from 1999 grassroots assessment of life recovery, from which a seven critical element model of life recovery was constructed. The effects of these seven critical elements on life recovery were empirically tested and validated by general linear model (GLM) analysis. The 2003 (N=1203) and 2005 (N=1028) studies focused both on life recovery outcomes and on intervening life recovery processes. Structural equation modeling (SEM) identified causal links among recovery-promotion factors, recovery processes such as event impact stabilization, and event evaluation through community empowerment, and recovery outcomes. Event impact was a process through which impact caused by earthquake damage, loss, and/or stress was alleviated by housing, household finances, and stress management. Through event evaluation, social ties and community rebuilding efforts directly or indirectly facilitated the reframing of earthquake experiences into positive narratives. Research and policy implications of these findings are discussed in the end.

The 1995 Great Hanshin‐Awaji earthquake resulted in immense imbalances among and within natural ecosystems, the built environment, and human systems. The current study examined the relationship among familial adjustment, adaptive construction of social reality, and recovery of built environment. A random sample mail survey was conducted on 3,300 earthquake victims and 993 questionnaires were returned. The survey questionnaire included the following four scales that measured the family system adjustment on family cohesion and adaptability, the adaptive construction of new reality as evidenced by citizenship orientations, the current level of physical and psychological stress, and a subjective evaluation of life recovery. The results were as follows: (1) Those families that exhibited high cohesion and a clear leadership structure in the emergency period were more functional than others. (2) Those families that reported a balanced level of cohesion and adaptability during the recovery period were the most functional in promoting present individual recovery and in alleviating current stress. (3) The rise of civic‐mindedness was observed among those who survived the disaster. (4) Those with high civic‐mindedness tend to be better recovered with less current physical and psychological stress. This paper presented a human ecological model that described the relationships among five components: (1) the earthquake hazard, (2) built environment conditions such as disruption of the lifeline and its recovery, (3) opportunity costs for engaging in exchanges with either basic‐trust‐based ties or social‐trust‐based ties, (4) the optimal family system adjustment to corresponding exchange relations, and (5) adaptive construction of new social reality.

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This study aims to clarify: 1) the life recovery trajectories that the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) survivors have followed; 2) the interrelationships between the life recovery trajectories and pre-existing inequalities as well as post-event social environmental changes; and 3) pre- and post-GEJE characteristics of the survivors with stagnant life recovery. The analyses are based on five-wave panel data from “Natori City Life Recovery Population Panel Survey” (n = 316), which was conducted in Natori City, Miyagi Prefecture from the fourth to the tenth years after the GEJE. Cluster analysis was performed to classify the life recovery trajectories and identified six distinct patterns. Two types of them remained at a low level of life recovery throughout the five-wave survey. Multiple correspondence analysis was conducted to analyze the relationships among life recovery trajectory patterns, pre-existing inequalities, and post-event social environmental changes. As a result, the survivors in these two types were typically older people, small household members, poor people, and persons with disabilities. These findings indicate that people with vulnerabilities who would experienced daily life troubles before the GEJE were also struggling even after the disaster.