Group 6

Samuel Chigura:M231623

Question: Citing examples in your answer, examine the gendered impacta of natural disasters

The statistics are staggering, when disaster strikes women and children are 14 times more likely than
men to die. Let me use a real example of the 230 000 people killed in the 2004 Indiana ocean Tsunami,
70 percent were women. This is due to different roles, responsibility and access to resources influence
how each will be affected by different hazards and how they will cope with and recover from disaster. In
a sample of up to 141 countries over the period 1981 to 2002 we analyze the effect of disaster strength
and its interaction with the socioeconomic status of women on the change in the gender gap in life
expectancy.It's true that in most cases natural disasters affect more women than men but also men are
affected by these disasters in a different way than women. One of the causes is the policy of gender
equality. In the essay below I'm going to show how how disasters affect gender in different ways and
giving examples of these disasters and their gender impacts.

To commence with, natural disasters lower the life expectancy of women more than that of men. In
other words, natural disasters (and their subsequent impact) on average kill more women than men or
kill women at an earlier age than men. Since female life expectancy is generally higher than that of
males, for most countries natural disasters narrow the gender gap in life expectancy.

Moreover,the stronger the disaster (as approximated by the number of people killed relative to
population size), the stronger this effect on the gender gap in life expectancy. That is, major calamities
lead to more severe impacts on female life expectancy (relative to that of males) than do smaller
disasters.

To add more,the higher women's socioeconomic status, the weaker is this effect on the gender gap in
life expectancy. Taken together results show that it is the socially constructed gender-specific
vulnerability of females built into everyday socioeconomic patterns that lead to the relatively higher
female disaster mortality rates compared to men.

On top of that, Displacement of large groups of people. Natural disasters have caused many to displace
from their homes . Natural disasters like droughts especially in rural areas made populations to migrate
to cities in search for food and this lead to problems such as poor sanitation facilities etc . All the
migration practices result in girls being raped while in search of food , employment and better living
conditions. For example, the 2015 to 2016 drought in Mozambique disadvantaged more girls because
their livehood was taken away as they have to do whatever work available to get a better living.

Also, floods have different impact on men and women, for example the floods that were caused by
cyclone Idai killed more elderly women, pregnant women and children than it killes men. This implies
biology plays a part in the difference of the impact of natural disasters. Men are more physically capable
of withstanding some harsh conditions than men.

Again, In early warning systems (EWS), for example, women and men access, process, interpret and
react to alerts in different ways. The alert communications, however, tend to favor male realities and
behaviors. For example, EWS increasingly favors mobile devices, but they are more accessible to men
than for women; GSMA states in its recent report that the gender gap in mobile internet use in low- and
middle-income countries remains substantial, with over 300 million fewer women than men accessing
the internet on a mobile. Lower access to education (and therefore to literacy), the “standard” alert
timing often occurring when women are cooking or occupied in childcare activities, the overall
responsibility of children or the elderly while reacting to the alerts, and alert communication directing
people to shelters even if they do not have protection measures in place, further ignores female realities
and disrupts women's real access to standard EWS.

However we can not entirely exclude men in the impact of natural disasters, they too have areas they
suffer more than women. For example the idea of gender equality is disadvantaging the me, if a disaster
occur people believe that men used to be seen as superior the women so to change that resces,
necessities and medicine is first given to women and children before giving the men hence this affect
men than women.

Also, socially disasters also affect men than women because if floods occur and infrastructure is
distroyed, it's the duty of the man as the head of the family to find shelter for his family. This affect
more men than women.

In conclusion, as shown above to a larger extent women are more affected by natural disasters than
men and to a lesser extent men are affected more. This can be caused by differents in socio-economic
status and biological differents. These gender impacts need to be addressed, The international
community recognizes the importance of gender in disaster management, and gender is recognized as
an essential factor in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk
Reduction, and the Agenda for Humanity. To turn such frameworks into a reality, all stakeholders – from
governments to civil society, communities to the United Nations, and academia to the private sector –
all have a role to play.