NATURAL DISASTERS AND GENDER STATISTICSLessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Nahoko MITSUYAMACounsellor for Gender Equality AnalysisGender Equality BureauCabinet Office, Government of Japan

5th Global Forum for Gender Statistics

Japan: a disaster-prone country

Japan21220%

# of earthquakes with magnitude 6.0 or greater

World total1,036

Japan1087%

# of active volcanoes

World total1,548

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Source: Cabinet Office# of earthquakes: Sum of # 2000-2009# of active volcanoes: those that have erupted within the past 10,000 years

The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

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-14:46 March 11, 2011-Biggest ever in recorded history in Japan

-Hypocenter area: 450km x 200km

-Highest ever Tsunami -Many big earthquakes followed outside the hypocenter area

Impact of the Earthquake and Tsunami as of 11 Sep. 2014• “Multiplex” disaster: Earthquake + Tsunami + Nuclear

power plant accident• Eastern half of Japan damaged• 16K people killed, 6K injured, 2K+ still missing• 130K buildings completely damaged, 273K half-damaged,

745K partially damaged• 246K people evacuated• 4K roads &100+ bridges damaged, some railroads still out

of service• Power shortage due to the NPP accident

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The amount of damage: JPY 16.9 trillion (USD 152 billion) Source: National Police Agency, Cabinet Office

Problems related to statistics in the immediate aftermath

# of evacuees and their sex, age, necessity for support (those who need care, pregnant…) unknown

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For example,Nobody in a shelter knew how many women and babies were there when NPOs visited to offer goods for them

# of evacuees disaggregated by sex, age, etc. got to be perceived essential in capturing their needs and assisting appropriately

What done?• “Disaster Countermeasure Basic Act“ amended in June

2013• Head of municipality required to make a list of sufferers

• Published a guideline to secure conditions of living in evacuation centers in August 2013• A guideline for implementing the Basic Act• Recommends to prepare a list of refugees with details such as sex

when an evacuation center is set up, and to succeed the information to the list of sufferers

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Problems in the phase of reconstruction: preparing White Paper• No statistics by sex, except for # of the dead• Various researches conducted, but published data scarcely

disaggregated by sex;

Examples:1. A survey on the action when Tsunami hit: Gender Equality Bureau (GEB)

needed to procure raw data and tabulate themselves2. A survey on the health of refugees: GEB asked specialists to disaggregate

the data >> Surprising results even for them 3. The numbers of active job seekers published by Public Employment

Security Office: The Office started to publish numbers by sex in responding to the requests from NPOs

4. The number of employment related to immediate employment measures: Data disaggregation realized owing to the request from GEB

• No recognition on the possible value of sex-disaggregation• Some data available by prefecture by sex, but not distinguishable

between damaged and non-damaged areas: # of suicides, crimes…

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Example from White Paper1: Casualties and population by age in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima Pref.

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2.9

2.7

2.9

4.8

7.1

11.9

17.8

24.1

25.7

8.0

9.3

9.8

12.3

11.9

13.8

13.4

11.9

9.7

0102030(%)

Women3.2

2.8

3.9

6.3

7.5

12.7

20.8

25.0

17.9

9.0

10.5

10.7

13.5

12.7

14.7

13.8

9.8

5.3

0 10 20 30

0-9

10-19

20-29

30-39

40-49

50-59

60-69

70-79

80+

(%)

Composition of population in the three prefectures

Composition of casualties by the Earthquake

Men

60 years or more

Population 35.0%

Casualties 67.6%

60 years or more

Population 28.9%

Casualties 63.7%

Years old

The ratio of casualties disproportionally higher for the elderly regardless of sex

Source: White Paper on Gender Equality 2012

Example from White Paper2: Accompanying persons when evacuated

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13.1

29.2

82.1

64.0

1.3

3.3

3.5

3.6

0 20 40 60 80 100

Women(n=521)

Men(n=336)

(%)

Evacuated alone

Evacuated in a small group

Evacuated in a small group but became isolated during the evacuation process

Other

Source: White Paper on Gender Equality 2012

Women tend to evacuate in a small group in comparison with men

Example from White Paper3: Suspicion of insomnia in Rikuzenｔakata City

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32.3

52.4

23.3

19.8

44.4

27.7

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Women (n=2,961)

Men (n=1,846)

Not at allTo some degreeClearly suspected

Source: White Paper on Gender Equality 2012

Women tend to suffer from insomnia in comparison with men, same as the result from the nationwide survey

Challenges• # of evacuees: further disaggregated data needed in

order to take appropriate measures, especially for those who continue to live in temporary dwellings

• Many mothers and their children said to evacuate separately from fathers with regard to the power plant accident, but no data collected

• Opinion poll in the damaged area not realized due to objections from inside the government

• # of people who died related to the Earthquake not disaggregated by sex due to objections from inside the government

• Data concerning reconstruction scarcely collected by sex for the purpose of “alleviation of respondents’ loads”

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Gracious!Thank you!

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