Livelihoods, precarity, and disaster vulnerability: Nicaragua and Hurricane Mitch

How livelihoods determine vulnerability to disasters is a recent topic of inquiry. Few quantitative works have been produced to date. The empirical analysis that follows draws on household-level data available for Nicaragua, preceding and following Hurricane Mitch, a devastating Category 5 storm that made landfall in Central America in October 1998, to examine differentials in disaster recovery outcomes vis-à-vis household livelihood profiles. Livelihoods are distinguished according to economic sector along with ownership of productive means, a central mechanism of vulnerability under sociological labour frameworks. The findings indicate uneven recovery outcomes in relation to livelihoods. During the year immediately following the event, agricultural wage earners and agricultural owner-producers experienced marked losses owing to the disaster, whereas business owners saw an improvement in condition. Analysis of long-term recovery reveals that households reliant on agricultural wage employment exhibit lagged recovery relative to other livelihood profiles. The findings are discussed with respect to the dynamic pressures posed by contemporary developmental processes.