Does labor out‐migration affect the sustainability of disaster mitigation? Insight from the social–ecological system perspective

Abstract Much is known about disaster mitigation (DM) actions, but little is known about the impact of migration as an exogenous shock. Rural farmers in mountainous areas are under the pressure of poverty, and also face the threat of geo‐hazards. Therefore, a more complex relationship exists between rural farmers' willingness to out‐migration for work and their DM behavior. To gain insight into the relationship between the two, we constructed the social–ecological system (SES) framework based on the survey data of 864 households in 53 villages in Chongqing, and verified our findings using the endogenous switching regression model and the mediation effect model. The results show that labor out‐migration has a negative correlation with the DM behavior of peasant households. When the total effect is further categorized into the direct effect and mediation effect; the negative total effect of labor out‐migration on the DM of farmers changes from a significant to an insignificant negative direct effect. It can be seen that labor out‐migration is not the direct cause of low motivation for DM, but the loss of leadership caused by labor out‐migration, the dilution of farmers' sense of place, and the decline of farmers' risk perception are the causes that ultimately lead to the decline of farmers' action ability for DM. This study confirms that the SES framework is suitable for empirical research on how labor out‐migration affects the ability of local villages to ensure DM action. These findings add new theoretical insights to the literature on DM.