ABSTRACT

While people around the world are increasingly facing various climate-related stresses, women with limited resources in low income developing societies are often at a greater risk largely because of their pre-existing constraints on social, economic, political, and cultural resources and opportunities. In this paper, we investigate how gender differences influence farmers’ access to various resources that are critical for local climate adaptation in coastal Bangladesh. As one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in not only the country but the world, coastal Bangladesh is experiencing a significant increase in sea level rise, tropical cyclones, storm surges, coastal flooding, coastal erosions as well as unpredictable rainfall patterns. All of these climate related stresses directly contribute to the region’s increasing exposure to saltwater intrusion in coastal lands and freshwater sources. While a majority of the previous research has focused on community-based climate adaptation, there has been limited attention on how gender differences shape local farmers’ climate adaptation strategies. Using mixed-methods research, this article highlights the ways in which male-headed and female-headed farming households have differential access to locally available adaptation resources along with associated constraints or opportunities for adaptation and disaster risk reduction strategies vary substantially. Our findings suggest female-headed farms are less likely to sell their farmland or migrate away in search of non-farm income due to normative gendered expectations and socio-cultural restrictions. Therefore, female farmers are forced to pursue in-place farming adaptation strategies with limited external resources while relying on informal social networks for weather and climate information.

摘要

尽管世界各地的人们越来越多地面临与气候有关的各种压力，但在低收入发展中社会中资源有限的妇女往往面临更大的风险，这主要是因为她们先前对社会，经济，政治和文化资源与机会的限制。在本文中，我们调查了性别差异如何影响农民获得各种资源的能力，这些资源对于孟加拉国沿海地区的当地气候适应至关重要。孟加拉国不仅是该国而且是世界上最容易受到气候影响的地区之一，其海平面上升，热带气旋，风暴潮，沿海洪灾，沿海侵蚀以及不可预测的降雨模式正急剧增加。所有这些与气候有关的压力直接导致该地区对沿海土地和淡水源的海水入侵的暴露日益增加。尽管先前的大多数研究都集中在基于社区的气候适应上，但对于性别差异如何影响当地农民的气候适应策略的关注却很少。本文使用混合方法研究，重点介绍了以男性为首和以女性为首的农户如何以不同的方式获得本地可用的适应资源，以及相关的限制或适应机会以及减少灾害风险战略的机会大相径庭。我们的发现表明，由于规范的性别期望和社会文化限制，女性当家的农场不太可能出售其农田或迁移以寻求非农业收入。因此，女性农民被迫在外部资源有限的情况下采取就地农业适应战略，同时依靠非正式的社会网络获取天气和气候信息。