Disasters, Local Organizations, and Poverty in the United States, 1998-2015

• In Event: 2185 - Sociology of Disasters

Abstract

Classic and contemporary disaster studies point to two outcomes following natural hazards: changes in local organizational ecology, and increases in local social inequality. Yet no research has examined these dynamics over time for a wide array of areas and hazards; nor has it investigated how local organizational shifts might moderate increases in social inequality after such events occur. We fill that gap by analyzing hazard damages, organizations, and poverty rates for all U.S. counties from 1998 to 2015. Results show that for-profit and social capital organizations tend increase after greater local damages, as do poverty rates. Results show that the letter especially depends on concurrent organizational change. Specifically, increases in local religious and civic organizations amplifies increases in local poverty rates after damages; the opposite is true for other organizations. Implications center on the nexus of disasters, organizations, and inequality, including Janus-faced organizational dynamics associated with more bonding social capital.

Authors

• Kevin T. Smiley, State University of New York-Buffalo

• Junia Howell, University of Pittsburgh

• James R. Elliott, Rice University