The social behavior of immigrants during natural disasters: Lessons from the United States

Abstract

Natural disasters can disrupt our social fabric and increase political polarization by differentially impacting different subpopulations and exacerbating existing inequities. In this paper, we examine the effects of natural disasters on the divergence of social behavior between immigrants and natives in the United States. First, using individual-level time diary data from 2003–2021, we document that first generation immigrants socialize less, volunteer less, and spend more time in religious activities relative to their native counterparts. Second, we make use of temporal and spatial variation in disaster-induced fatalities to examine the relationship between major disasters and time allocation for different social behavioral outcomes. We find that major disasters affect the social lives of both immigrants and natives, but the effects are significantly more pronounced for immigrants. Finally, we show that immigrants respond to disasters by making significant adjustments in their labor market participation both on the intensive and extensive margins, whereas the effects are milder for natives. Our results further suggest that immigrants face higher levels of barriers to out-migrate following a disaster compared to native counterparts, resulting in disruption of social networks.