| This dissertation examines community level disaster vulnerability to earthquakes in California. Sociological studies of disasters have identified vulnerable populations as being disproportionately affected by disaster events. As vulnerability varies by ethnicity, gender and social class, it affects people's ability to prepare for disasters, risk and the capacity of people to recover after disasters. I examine the impact of ethnicity and social class on preparedness, perceptions of risk and recovery as well as how ethnicity, class, gender and community interact to drive disaster preparedness, risk and recovery. My dissertation builds on work amplifying the research on emotions and social roles to hypothesize how gender, ethnicity, and class might impact disaster preparedness, perceptions of risk and response.;I examine a number of research hypotheses addressing gender, ethnicity and social class via quantitative analyses of survey data collected in the Los Angeles area following the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake and the 1994 Northridge earthquake as well as the San Francisco Bay area after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. I specifically examine community level variation in perceived levels of preparedness and actual preparedness activities, actions taken immediately after the onset of the earthquakes, access to the media, reported levels of fear and perceptions of risk using key sociodemographic variables such as gender, race, social class, education, age, household composition, employment, income, residency status, etc.;The goal of this dissertation then is to examine the impact of ethnicity and social class on preparedness, perceptions of risk and recovery. Secondly, this research examines how gender ethnicity and class interact with community to influence disaster preparedness, risk and recovery. |
