Gender and household resilience to flooding in informal settlements in Accra, Ghana

Abstract

A growing body of literature indicates that the impacts of natural disasters and resilience vary among individuals and groups, with gender becoming a critical defining factor. However, the influences of gender on resilience at the household level remain largely unexplored. Using data gathered from households in informal settlements in Accra, Ghana, this paper examines the varying effects of flooding on male and female-headed households, gendered differences in resilience, as well as factors influencing these gendered differences. The research revealed that female-headed households had reduced capacities to prepare, cope and recover from the impacts of flooding due to their expected gender roles, relatively larger family sizes, care responsibilities, lower levels of employment, and limited access to resources. These findings show that gender sensitivity to recovery and resilience are key to disaster planning and management programmes, and so the driving forces should be considered in policymaking.

Keywords:

• disaster resilience
• gender
• informal settlements
• flooding
• Accra

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Chi-square test assumes that no more than 20% of the cells have expected values of less than 5 (Field 2013). Undertaking intra-settlement analysis violates this condition where contingency tables are large.