Climate Extremes and Unequal Preparedness: Social Inequality in Subjective Disaster Resilience

• In Event: Student Forum Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 10: Environment and Inequality

Abstract

Extreme weather events, intensified by anthropogenic climate change, have transformed natural hazards, producing more frequent and intense disasters in recent decades. Household capacity to prepare and respond to these events is uneven and shaped by social, economic, and environmental factors that influence resilience. This study examines household-level subjective resilience in Oklahoma to extreme weather events using perceived preparedness as the key indicator. The study is guided by the Disaster Resilience of Place model, which conceptualizes resilience as a socially structured capacity shaped by socioeconomic conditions, infrastructure, and environmental exposure. Using survey data from the summer of 2020 of the Oklahoma Mesoscale Integrated Socio-Geographic Network, this study employs ordinal logistic regression to analyze predictors of perceived household preparedness for extreme weather events.
The findings reveal that subjective resilience is strongly stratified by social and structural conditions. Household income, homeownership status, housing location, climate change risk perception, and social capital emerge as significant predictors of perceived preparedness for extreme weather events. Prior experience with extreme events and hazard exposure was not significant, highlighting a disconnect between perceived and actual preparedness. Notably, climate change risk perception is negatively associated with perceived preparedness, reflecting the interplay of political orientation and the risk perception paradox. These results underscore the relational nature of subjective resilience, revealing how unequal access to resources, social capacities, and risk perceptions drives disparities in perceived preparedness for extreme weather events. Overall, the study demonstrates that subjective resilience is a socially structured outcome embedded within systems of inequality. These findings underscore that effective disaster and climate adaptation strategies must go beyond hazard mitigation to address the structural factors that produce uneven resilience. By integrating technical preparedness with psychosocial support and structural interventions, policies can foster more equitable resilience and reduce vulnerability across populations.

Author

• Kamala Shrestha, Oklahoma State University