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Relocation Stress, Coping, and Sense of Control Among Resettlers Resulting from China’s Three Gorges Dam Project

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Abstract

The involuntary relocation of people for development purposes has become prevalent across the world in recent decades. Depression is one of the documented negative outcomes of involuntary relocation among resettlers. Viewing the affected population simply as passive victims, past studies have largely ignored the coping strategies employed by individual resettlers in dealing with stress they experienced in the relocation process. Focusing on Three Gorges Project-induced relocation in China, this study examines coping strategies employed by resettlers using panel data collected before and after relocation. We found that emotion-focused coping was more effective than problem-focused coping in combating relocation-related depression. Unsuccessful problem-focused coping was found to elevate, rather than reduce depression. Emotion-focused coping reduces depression not only directly but also indirectly by restoring resettlers’ sense of control. This study contributes to the literature by identifying coping strategies, as well as their mechanisms, that are effective in combating relocation-induced distress.

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Notes

  1. Because the timing of relocation was determined by altitude of the location, those yet-to-be moved resettlers generally resided in a location with higher elevations.

  2. Because some variables were only relevant either at time 1 or at time 2, not every variable in the model was measured as a difference score. However, difference scores were used whenever available because of their methodological advantages (Allison 1990, 1994).

  3. We need to point out that the difference model is not useful for estimating the effects of observed time invariant variables. Assuming the effects of time-invariant variables, such as gender, age, education, are stable between time 1 and time 2, they dropped off the model when taking the differences from time 1 to time 2. This is not a problem of this study, however, because we focused on changes and how individuals cope with changes. Age is treated as time-invariant because the change is a constant (3 years) for every respondent.

  4. In another study on the Three Gorges resettlers using the same sample, we found that about two thirds of respondents also expected some benefits from the relocation. This revealed that resettlers’ perception of the relocation was mixed. Many expected benefits at one aspect and at the same time planning for the worst for another aspect of their post-relocation livelihood.

  5. Socio-demographic variables such as gender, age, and education did not shown up because they were differenced out form the model (Allison 2005).

  6. It is possible that individuals with a greater sense of control are more likely to act to change their circumstances, which in turn reduced their depression. We didn’t consider this causal mechanism in the analysis because this paper focused on the relationship between coping and distress instead of the possible interplays between coping and sense of control.

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  1. The University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA

    Juan Xi

  2. The University of Alabama at Birmingham, 460 Heritage Hall Building, 1401 University Blvd., Birmingham, AL, 35294-1152, USA

    Sean-Shong Hwang

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  1. Juan Xi
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Xi, J., Hwang, SS. Relocation Stress, Coping, and Sense of Control Among Resettlers Resulting from China’s Three Gorges Dam Project. Soc Indic Res 104, 507–522 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-010-9758-5

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