The Problem

This chapter offers a critique of the homogenization of older adults in research, discusses its implications for disaster research, and offers policy recommendations. Older adults have been mostly understood as experiencing health and well-being evenly. Hence, older populations are often considered a homogeneous group based on their health outcomes. The underlying assumption of homogeneity among older adults in terms of health outcomes (i.e., assumption that aging inevitably leads to poor health) has resulted in their classification as a vulnerable group. However, this type of categorization is problematic because older adults vary in educational attainment, health status, income, and wealth. Given these variations, the socioeconomic resources and services needed to cope with the adverse effects of natural disasters may differ between the groups of older adults. In this regard, we currently need to focus on policy changes to better assist older adults in South Asia who are more likely to bear the brunt of natural disasters.

Natural disasters have had devastating consequences, particularly, for people living in Asia. Between 1970 and 2014, natural disasters related deaths surpassed 2 million, constituting 56.6% deaths globally. During the same period, 87.6% of people (i.e., 6 billion people) affected globally resided in Asia and Pacific region. Recent evidence regarding natural disasters continues to make Asia-Pacific the world’s most disaster-prone region. This part of the world experienced 160 calamities in 2015, which constituted 47% of the world’s catastrophes. In 2016, seven of the top ten countries for the number of natural disasters were in Asia.

The mainstream understanding of natural disasters that tends to consider them as unavoidable and universal in terms of their devastating consequences, often fails to recognize heterogeneities in a population. The intersectional identities of older adults as defined by caste, race, class, gender, religious background, and sexuality constitute heterogeneity in various outcomes such as economic status, health, and functioning. Those identities serve as “interlocking system of oppression” and are “part of one overarching structure of domination.” The acknowledgment of heterogeneities due to intersectional identities of older adults requires us to interrogate uneven impacts of natural disasters on older adults. Scholars, as well as policy makers, need to recognize that the differential experiences of older adults in an event of a natural disaster are due to their structural location.