ANALISIS GENERAL DE RESULTADOS 61 

In recent years, a wide range of studies have focused on how differently men and women are affected by, and respond to, during disasters (e.g. Ikeda, 2009; Gell, 2010; Horton, 2012). For a start it has been observed that disaster fatalities are seldom gender neutral (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007; Enarson and Chakrabarti, 2009), and survival rates of women are much lower than men in the wake of disasters (Guha-Sapir, van Panhuis and Lagoutte, 2007; Basher, 2008; Eiinder and Erixson, 2012). Based on a sample of 141 countries over the period from 1981 to 2002, Neumayer and Plümper (2007) found that natural disasters lower the life expectancy of women more than that of men, which means that, on average, natural disasters and their consequences kill more women than men or kill women at an earlier age than men.

Many of these studies have also suggested that the disaster-related gender gap in life expectancy is negatively connected to the socio-economic status of women (Neumayer, & Plümper, 2007). In other words, the female mortality rate is higher in disasters not because women are physically weaker, but because of male-dominated social structure, underpinned by cultural traditions (Begum, 1993; Lewis, 2006; Norris et al., 2005; Rashid and Michaud, 2000). The expectation that a woman will look after the children and the elderly can make it harder for her to save her own life (Begum, 1993; Kotze, 1996). This suggests that everyday social and cultural practices result in higher disaster-related female mortality (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007).

Women are among the most vulnerable population groups because they are poorer, on average, than men; generally have less access to, or control over, resources; and are restricted in what their independence and agency by a wide range of laws and cultural (Cambron, Acitelli and Pettit, 2009; Cannon, 2002; Covan and Fugate-Whitlock, 2010; Kotze, 1996; Wisner and Luce, 1993). Poverty leaves people more vulnerable to disaster and poverty for women is amplified by ideologies about gender (Seager, 2005, 2006; Jones-Deweever and Hartmann, 2006; Saroor, 2010). Poor women can rarely afford quality housing located in areas with limited hazard exposure, and adequate supplies of food to cope with disaster-related disruptions (Cannon, 2002). A poor woman might die or be injured in a disaster because she lives in a flimsy shack located in a dangerous place but also because she lacks food for family and herself and cannot find paid work (Rigg et al, 2008). Unless poverty traps for women are dismantled the predicted

Page | 36 increase in the intensity and frequency of natural disasters associated with global climate change will have particularly disastrous consequences for women (Cannon, 2002; Reed and Christie, 2009).

Studies have also shown that female-headed households are more likely to have inadequate preparation for a disaster and are likely to need greater assistance after a disaster (e.g. Zottarelli, 2008). In female-headed households, the ability of women to create safe conditions in the face of impending floods or hurricanes is greatly reduced when they lack reliable incomes and other resources (Cannon, 2002; Waite, 2000). It has been argued that female-headed households are vulnerable to disasters not because the disasters discriminate or even because relief aid is inadequate but because of gendered divisions of labour (Takasaki, 2012).

In general women are responsible for a larger share of domestic and child rearing work than men and they are also likely to have a greater emotional attachment to their home than men (Aksaray et al, 2006; Samuels, 2012). Studies have shown that, in the wake of disasters, women tend to take responsibility for the wellbeing of children and other family members before they seek relief aid and they rarely request assistance with their domestic or childcare work even when this work has been made more difficult by disaster impacts (Rao, 2006; Steckley and Doberstein, 2011). The variety of roles that women are expected to play in reproduction, production and community care, combined with cultural perceptions of how they should play such roles, makes it very hard for them to deal with disaster (Cupples, 2007; Kotze, 1996; Stehlik et al., 2000). Preparations for disasters, and activities in the aftermath, are clearly organised along gender lines where males are viewed as the major protectors and providers and are expected to play a bigger role outside the home (Always and Smith, 1998; Peak and Fothergill, 2008; Samuels, 2012). By contrast, women tend to be seen as nurturers and comforters with primary responsibilities within the home where they carry the burden of both physical and emotional work (ibid). One study has suggested that the stress of their post- disaster emotional responsibilities has led to increased use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs by some women (Cepeda et al, 2010).

Some researchers have linked the post-disaster health and safety issues faced by women and girls to their lack of social power (e.g. Callaghan et al., 2007; Harville, Xu, and Buekens, 2009). It has been noted that their relative lack of social power makes women more sensitive to the dangers posed by natural disasters (Ripley, 2009) and that they are more likely than men to respond to calls for evacuation (Brezina, 2008; Brown et al., 2010; Covan and Fugate- Whitlock, 2010).

2.1.1 Death and injury

It is widely reported that women and children are more likely than men to be killed or suffer injuries in a natural disaster although Mazurana et al (2011) have noted that data which is disaggregated by gender is rarely made available. Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) data suggests that women accounted for 61 per cent of fatalities in Burma as a result of Hurricane Nargis in 2008, and 67 per cent of fatalities in the 2004 tsunami Indian Ocean disaster in Banda Aceh in Indonesia. For Bangladesh, it has been estimated that women accounted for a staggering 90 per cent of deaths in the 1991 cyclone disaster which killed

Page | 37 140,000 people (Ikeda, 1995, cited by IUCN, 2004).

A number of factors have been suggested for the higher rates of disaster-related mortality and injury for women, including the fact that they frequently have to look after dependent children; may be expected to wear clothing that hinders mobility; and may be physically weaker than men due to underlying health problems (including malnutrition) (Oxfam, 2012). In some cultures, women are also expected wear long hair and may be expected to be accompanied a male family member when outside the homes. They may be discouraged, or certainly not encouraged, from participating in physical activities that could save their lives in a disaster, such as swimming or climbing (Chowdhury et al., 1993; Oxfam, 2005; Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), 2008). In other words, the key constraints are more likely to be social and cultural rather than biological. This is confirmed by the observation that more men than women died in the Hurricane Mitch disaster in Central America in 1998 because their work practices made them more exposed (Gomáriz, 1999).

Ironically, concerns over safety may also be a contributing factor in Bangladesh because cyclone shelters, where there is little privacy, may be considered unsafe environments for girls, in particular, and they may instead be left in more precarious situations at home (Plan, 2011). While much of the literature on disaster mortality and injury focuses on abrupt disasters, Sen (1990) has noted that women tend to die more frequently in slow-onset disasters such as droughts because they are more likely to go without food.

2.1.2 Post-disaster migration

It has long been noted that after big disasters some members of a poor household have to leave home to seek paid work. Following Hurricane Mitch, large-scale migration of male heads of households was reported (Delaney and Shrader, 2000) with the men hoping to find employment and send remittances back to their families. According to Fordham (2006), there is little information on what this kind of migration means for the women who stay at home. They may be left waiting for money that never arrives, if the men decide to start a new life elsewhere, and this may be compounded by the fact that some households sell their assets to finance the journey of the men. On the other hand, Fordham suggests that the departure of the men may allow the women to seek work outside the home and he suggests that women in Muzzaffarabad, Pakistan, felt they had more freedom when the men left.

It has long been the case that women sometimes migrate after a disaster as Bradshaw (2001) noted that women also left home after the Hurricane Mitch disaster in Nicaragua to seek work in the ‘service sector’, leaving adolescent girls responsible for the care of younger siblings. It has become much more common in recent decades for women in the Indian sub-continent to leave home seeking work in the Middle East (DFID,2007) and women in Bangladesh leave rural areas to get work in the city-based garment industry (Ali, Begum, Salehin, & Farid, 2008).