Women in the Community Rebuilding after Typhoon Morakot

• In Event: 220 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 18. Conceptualizing Carework

Abstract

This study discusses the relationship between women and community rebuilding after Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan. Three questions are: (1)in the community rebuilding process, what are some circumstances sustain original gender division of labor? (2) What are some circumstances provide women opportunities to act their agencies? (3)What are some factors that may interact with social position of women? Five community rebuilding organizations chosen are in farming communities with traditional gender division of labor. Most people at the top of the organization are male, whereas volunteers who do caregiving or cooking are female. When women are at the top, challenges from local people emerge. Because of the governmental grants for typhoon impacted areas, the communities have resources and push caregiving into the public area. This means that more women originally staying at home join activities in the public area. Local people support these female volunteers because they do caregiving for the whole community. By transforming caregiving to something visible and professional in the public area, women become visible and professional too. This study also finds that being an immigrant is an important factor that influences women’s position in the process of community rebuilding. Some immigrant women’s status improve because they are the main young force in the community rebuilding process. Yet in general, it is difficult for them to participate in the public area because of family responsibilities or being lack of human capital.

Author

• Hsiang-Chieh Lee, National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction