Does early disaster exposure affect household agricultural income? Evidence from China

Abstract

As global climate change intensifies, reducing agricultural losses due to weather disasters caused by climate change has become a major concern. This study follows a cohort DID framework to explore the effects and mechanisms of early disaster experience on farmers' household agricultural income using the China Family Panel Studies data. This study finds that farmer households exposed to extreme disaster shocks early in life perform better in household agricultural income, but there are heterogeneities across households due to differences in resource endowments. Households with easier access to weather information, higher levels of cognition among household members, higher levels of household assets, better social capital, and less availability of non-farm employment opportunities performed better. Furthermore, climate change adaptive behavior is the main channel through which early disaster experiences affect household agricultural income. Households that experienced disaster shocks in earlier years tend to implement climate change adaptive behaviors such as reducing land rent out, increasing land rent in, and reducing participation in non-farm employment to increase household agricultural income. These findings provide evidence for farmers to adapt to climate change by learning from their disaster experiences. It also provides a reference for relevant authorities to design policies to help farmers adapt to climate change.