Women’s Support Shaken: A Study of Women’s Political Trust after Natural Disasters

Abstract

Women have unique experiences during natural disasters, including higher risks of death, violence, and socioeconomic decline and an increase in specific reproductive health needs. However, government responses often do not directly address these women-specific needs, which can decrease women’s political trust. I investigate women’s trust in government institutions when natural disasters have recently occurred and argue that because of their unique experiences and typical government responses, women’s political trust will decline when there is a natural disaster more than men’s. I find that when there is a high number of disasters and when a larger percentage of the population is affected by disasters, women’s political trust decreases significantly, especially institutional trust. These findings are distinct from previous studies that cluster different types of political trust and support the idea that women’s experiences in a disaster may influence their relationship with institutions differently than men’s.

Disasters and the diminishing of women's economic empowerment

“…As the planet warms further, disasters will become more prevalent in all areas of the world. Climate change has been shown to affect disproportionately women's livelihoods, trust, and health, among other variables (Neumayer and Plümper, 2007;Goodman, 2016;Kreutzer, 2022). These disasters will also negatively affect women's economic empowerment, as we have shown, and may create dire consequences for them in the future if not addressed.…”

Trust in disaster resilience

“…Significant research on the role of trust and distrust has appeared in the past few decades in the fields of sociology, political science and philosophy (Luhmann, 1979;Gambetta, 1988;Barber, 1983;Fukuyama, 1995;Misztal, 2011;Putnam, 2001;Hardin, 2006;Hawley, 2012;Uslaner, 2018;Lahusen, 2020;Levi-Faur, 2021). Despite the absence of any unanimously agreed framework (Fukuyama, 1995;Seligman, 1997;Ostrom and Walker, 2003;Hartmann, 2015;Adjekum et al, 2017), some of these theories have entered the field of disaster studies, for instance in relation to climate change (Dinesen, 2012;Jung and Song, 2018;Marion Suiseeya et al, 2021;Kreutzer, 2022;Jeongmin and Daewoong, 2022). These studies have started to identify specific dimensionscultural, socioeconomic, and political onesthat shape processes through which lasting trust, at both community and institutional level, can be built and preserved.…”