Residential-Mobility Responses to Home Damage Caused by Floods, Cyclones and Bushfires in Australia

Aude Bernard, University of Queensland
Francisco Perales, University of Queensland
Elin Charles-Edwards, University of Queensland
Sasha Bacquet-Carlier, University of Queensland

This paper contributes to the literature on disaster-induced mobility in high-income countries by extending the evidence to a new context: Australia. Applying propensity score matching to panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, we conduct the first causal assessment of the impact of home damage caused by extreme weather events on residential mobility in Australia. Our findings suggest that from 2009 to 2022 an annual average of 1.6% of Australians aged 15+ (or ~308,000 people a year) experienced home damage caused by floods, cyclones or bushfires. Such damage increases the probability of changing address within one year by 56%, displacing an annual average of 22,261 Australians. we find no evidence of “entrapment effects”, except for uninsured homeowners. Instead, our results indicate that over 80% of climate-displaced Australians come from the bottom two income quartiles, with the poorest 3% accounting for 14% of the displaced population. The most disadvantaged Australians thus face a double vulnerability: they are both more likely to sustain home damage from extreme weather events, and more likely to be displaced. These findings bear important implications for adaptation strategies and policy responses to natural disasters.

Keywords: Population, Environment, and Climate Change, Internal Migration and Urbanization

See paper.