Household internal structure and composition, social context and domestic assets accumulation and reaccumulation following a disaster: The 1976 Guatemalan earthquake

Using longitudinal data collected in Guatemala (1976-1980), this dissertation, first, explores the role of the internal structure and composition of the household in its processes of domestic assets accumulation, deaccumulation and reaccumulation. It is assumed that the same factors affecting household accumulation, operating prior to the disaster, are also present during and after the disaster. Therefore, the second purpose of this study is to determine if reaccumulation, which follows a disaster, is basically the same process as continued accumulation. Employing a quasi-experimental design, twenty-six communities were sampled. The data collected in these communities included individual, household and community level data to which a series of multiple regressions were applied in order to test the hypotheses about domestic assets accumulation. On the basis of these analyses, it was concluded that (1) the household's internal structure and composition and the social context in which it resides were critical to its ability to accumulate and reaccumulate domestic assets; (2) the reaccumulation process following a disaster is different from that experienced normally; (3) this reaccumulation is most significantly affected by the nature of the damage experienced and the type of housing aid received by the household; (4) the aid process involved a selection bias for participant households, which relates to the specific characteristics of the household, and altered the normal stratification system, at least during the four years following the earthquake; and, (5) because of this selection bias, the particular structural and compositional characteristics vary depending on whether the ongoing process is either one of continued accumulation or reaccumulation, and on the type of aid program within which a household participates.