Impact of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake on domestic dogs: An SCM analysis of three disaster-affected prefectures

Natural disasters affect not only physical infrastructure and human lives but also various aspects of our daily lives. Previous studies reported that disasters led people to develop more positive or more negative attitudes toward domestic animals. Most of this literature, however, compares pre- and post-disaster outcomes; the appropriate comparison should be conducted between the observed post-disaster reality and the counterfactual scenario in which the disaster did not occur. To address this gap arising from constraints in the practical application, this study applied the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) to examine the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake as an example. Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures were regarded as the treated units, and synthetic trajectories were constructed for Prefecture-level data on (1) Registered dogs, (2) Rabies shots, (3) Stray dogs captured, and (4) Rehomed dogs. By comparing the actual and synthetic trajectories, we evaluated long-term changes in observable indicators related to domestic animals. To further understand these long-term tendencies, the Animal Welfare Kuznets (AWK) curves were estimated using a fixed-effects model. The results indicated the presence of an AWK curve and suggested that Japan is currently in a phase where conditions of domestic animals improve as income rises. Our results showed that, among the four indicators across the three treated prefectures, the actual trajectories for rehomed dogs in Miyagi and Fukushima showed substantial divergence from synthetic trajectories, although subsequent sensitivity analyses provided more consistent support for the Fukushima case. Taken together with the AWK curve results, these findings may suggest that some disaster-separated dogs were actively sought and recovered after the disaster.