Return migration is key to community recovery from many disasters. Japanese governments have conducted radiation decontamination efforts in the Exclusion Zone designated after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in order to encourage this outcome. Little is known, however, about the factors that influence post-disaster migrants to return, and, if people are relatively unresponsive to decontamination, then the costs of promoting recovery may exceed the benefits. We exploit a unique survey of Fukushima evacuees to determine the factors that influence their decision to return after a disaster. Location-specific capital characteristics, such as housing tenure and the extent of property damage, are estimated to be strong factors. The radiation dose rate of the home location is found to be a statistically significant factor for intent to return, but its effect is small. We also found that households with various other characteristics were noncommittal about the return option and likely to defer their decisions, which implies that "return" and "not-return" are asymmetric. Our simulation analysis found that the number of returnees encouraged by this decontamination was 12,882, less than 8% of the total evacuees, while the decontamination cost per returnee was 3.36 million USD. This result implies that the government could have improved the well-being of evacuees at a lower cost by policies other than decontamination.

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This paper aims to evaluate CFW programs as a disaster recovery policy tool in terms of the psychological aspects, using the questionnaire survey data of 897 participants in Fukushima Prefecture. The main findings are as follows: those who “want to contribute to the reconstruction of Fukushima,” “to newly acquire experience or skills” and “have access to trainer or instructor” significantly felt being “connected” and thought “positively” to the future. Interestingly, evacuees as a group generally had positive views for the future. The primary conclusion is that CFW has been successfully targeted to a vulnerable group, and has a psychologically positive impact on the participants, and especially on the evacuees.

This paper examines the effects of the 2012 revisions to the damage predictions of an anticipated Nankai Trough megathrust earthquake on subsequent intermunicipality migration in Japan's coastal areas. We find that an increase in predicted tsunami height-rather than anticipated seismic movements-after the 2012 revision is associated with a subsequent reduction in net migration. While the reducing effect of tsunami predictions on in-migration persisted throughout the study period, the effect on out-migration was only temporary. Moreover, workingage people are more likely to respond to tsunami risk and avoid moving to municipalities with a high tsunami risk after the revisions.