The concept of “social vulnerability” refers to the levels of risk faced by an individual, group, community, or society, of suffering harm due to a catastrophe or loss, as well as to their capacity of recovering from it, reducing it, preventing it, and/or coping with it. As a field of study, it runs the gamut of social and scientific disciplines. Social vulnerability deals with the material aspects of a possible hazard—for instance, the possibility of harm from a flood, or of unemployment—as well as the intangible consequences that accompany it, such as feelings of insecurity, hopelessness, and despair.

Overview

The concept of social vulnerability has achieved great resonance in the arena of risk and security studies, given greater degrees of sophistication reached by measurement tools—such as social barometers—and other demographic indicators. The nature of social vulnerability is interdisciplinary, that is, it is studied from a wide spectrum of academic and technological fields such as geosciences and ecological studies, anthropology, sociology, engineering, social work and many others. Therefore, the concept of “vulnerability” has been defined in many different ways and based upon a variety of factors, according to the specific angle of each project. Among these factors it is possible to name risks and threats, stress, susceptibility, resilience, adaptation, coping strategies, and other human and structural capacities. Nevertheless, despite the academic differences, there are some common elements in most understandings of vulnerability.

Vulnerability is always understood in relation to some risk or threat. Threats may be in the form of disaster, either natural (e.g., mudslides, droughts, earthquakes, floods) or anthropogenic (e.g., pollution, climate change), or the result of social phenomena (e.g., unemployment, violence, pandemic). Moreover, risk is understood as a probability of harm contingent upon exposure to stress or some event or perturbation.

The unit of analysis or main entity being analyzed—an individual, a community, or a social group—is vulnerable to suffering harm and loss from a specific threat loss, which may take many forms, such as loss of life, health, income, bodily integrity, or resources. An assessment of social vulnerability is a two-pronged process. The conditions of the unit before the event or situation, that is, those factors which made it vulnerable to loss or harm, are considered. This is followed by analysis of the unit’s reaction to the stressor or catastrophic event. This relates to the individual’s, community’s, or group’s capabilities of adjustment, known as resilience.

Vulnerability as a complex unit of study has been covered within multiple disciplines and theoretical standpoints. Some emphasize the material and natural factors of a threat, which is often a physical phenomenon. Others, from a social science perspective, focus on how the material conditions of vulnerability are subordinated to social factors, such as culture, politics, economics, and ideology. Most contemporary analyses, however, emphasize realistic perspectives from a combination of factors, which emphasize physical risks, as well as the social conditions underpinning inequality, that is, different access among various social classes to key resources.

A multidisciplinary perspective, then, takes a deep look into the social component of social vulnerability. The main idea posits that it is possible to determine if a specific social group is vulnerable and its degree of vulnerability, by first understanding how social conditions of vulnerability are created in a society. Although the notion of resilience is a very important variable of analysis, the standpoint is not only about a group’s capacity of recovery, but also about the possibility of creating the necessary conditions to generate overall well-being and decreasing vulnerability to risk, harm, and exclusion.

Delving deeper into the concept of social vulnerability, it is pertinent to note that it is contextual, that is, it refers to the characteristics of a person or group and their specific situations, and how these may influence their capacity of anticipating, coping with, resisting, and recovering from a threat. There is a clear differentiation between the physical aspects of the threat—the material risk or hazard—and susceptibility to the threat, that is, its degree of vulnerability, which is a social factor. There is, as well, the interaction or articulation between the threat and vulnerability, which is where the conditions of disaster—catastrophic or chronic in nature—are triggered.

One of the most used models to date is the Disaster Pressure and Release (PAR) model, developed by Ben Wisner, Piers Blaikie, Terry Cannon, and Ian Davis in their seminal At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters (2003). The authors examine different types of threats or pressures, from war pressures to global economic pressures and environmental change, and created a model that separates disaster into three main components: (1) background causes, (2) insecure or unsafe conditions, and (3) dynamic pressures (i.e., social, political, and economic processes in local arenas). This model aims at explaining the ways in which threat or risk and vulnerability interact to create the underlying conditions of disaster, understood as a latent probability, eventually triggered by a combination of unsafe conditions and threats.

PAR is often used with other models to produce detailed reports of what occurs at the local level for different settings, including factors such as resources, awareness, and social relations, which have an influence on specific vulnerabilities and potential responses to different risks.

Regardless of theoretical model used, most focus on ways to measure the vulnerability and the identification of points of vulnerability, specifically in case of catastrophic phenomena, according to two main factors: The intensity of the hazard or risk to which a group is exposed and its relation to the material conditions of the population it threatens. This includes identifying who is vulnerable and the degree of vulnerability; identifying which events or phenomena are real hazards; and identifying vulnerability before stress situations occur that may change conditions dangerously in time.

Vulnerability is also often understood as a process of loss, that is, there was a previous condition followed by change. This is measured by specific tools that serve to create parameters, for instance, that define the normal or positive conditions in which, compared with the current conditions, define a process of vulnerability that represents loss. What this loss entails can vary: loss of life (death), loss of health (chronic illness), loss of resources (unemployment, homelessness), loss of capacities (to work or to provide for oneself), and many others. Different types of indicators—for example, for relative and absolute poverty—are often used to determine social vulnerability, though many experts consider using this type of indicator as the sole instrument of measure too limited or reductionist.

Applications

To determine the degree of social vulnerability, experts often examine a case—such as drought and famine in a given location—by striving to determine the conditions and extent to which the group has access to key resources, such as access to food, potable water, health care, jobs, and appropriate housing. These factors are taken into consideration as well when exploring ways to increase social well-being as a strategy for prevention of future harm.

Well-being studies have intersected with social vulnerability research in greatly innovative ways. In conventional risk studies, it is very common to focus on vulnerability to risk, especially environmental risks, from the perspective of measuring resilience. To do this, researchers analyze the capacity of a system—social as well as structural—to absorb perturbations, reorganize, and rebuild, as well as the reaction time involved when faced with climatic or biological hazards (e.g., storms or epidemics). Critics argue, however, that this theoretical framework lacks the nuances that studying social conditions provide. They fear that a focus purely on resilience and adaptation will neglect humanistic factors, that is, ethical, moral, and solidarity considerations.

The concept of well-being is very complex and, as is vulnerability, studied across a wide spectrum of academic disciplines, including psychology, medicine, economics, philosophy, and urban planning. Well-being in many ways defines the meaning of a satisfying, dignified, or good life. Well-being itself is defined variously among human beings, who as unique entities have different needs, preferences, and subjectivities. However, when looking upon the conditions for well-being for a whole community or society, there is a basic set of universal needs considered indispensable for all human beings to have covered in order to enjoy a life of dignity and worth. The absence of these conditions is considered a loss or a lack.

This set of conditions required for a dignified life are considered as minimal yet fundamental goods, along a line of generalized standards, without which an individual’s life is considered as lacking or deprived. Among these are access to potable water, medications, nutritious food, adequate housing, and schooling. In other words, these are considered the base of what should be seen as the norm in all societies, and the loss or lack of any of these is a risk to the well-being of the individual or group. On the other hand, societies sometimes vary greatly in what they consider the norm should be, how these resources should be provided, and the extent to which they should be provided. These factors are taken into consideration by experts in order to assess the vulnerability of a population, for example, whether they are already deprived of these base goods or at risk of losing them.

Social networks and solidarity are seen as impacting not only how these risks develop, but also what happens when catastrophes hit, such as floods, earthquakes, mudslides, and wildfires, and which groups show the greatest resilience and ability to recover. Therefore, social vulnerability runs along a current of politics and ethics beyond merely technical and scientific assessments of who is at risk or how to prevent or react to risk.

Social vulnerability is a field of great complexity and, as such, must be examined in multiple ways. For instance, information may be gathered from above, to understand the political and socioeconomic impact created by the state and economic elites, and from below, to understand the cultural and other social factors that move groups and communities. Data or information thus gathered may be analyzed according to a wide variety of methods, analytical instruments, and technologies, depending upon the specific item to be examined. In general, and when possible, according to experts, they should include, besides hard scientific data, the contextual background, that is, demographic and socioeconomic indicators, such as housing conditions; familial organization, education, market and labor conditions, and social relations.

These serve, for instance, to examine which social groups are at greater risk for heavier environmental impact or economic hardship—and why. For instance, in many nations across the world, women and youth are commonly identified as socially vulnerable groups, factors that become greatly compounded by race, socioeconomic level, familial organization, geographic location, and so on. Intersecting factors of youth and labor market, it is possible to assess the vulnerability of low-income youth entering the labor market for the first time, especially if they have dropped out of high school or are at-risk of dropping out. One can also assess the vulnerability of single mothers faced with stressors such as the need for affordable quality daycare to become effectively integrated into the labor market. Another situation that often places adolescents and women at risk is familial disintegration or lack of family and social networks of support, as well as lack of access to work training and education. All of these factors force low-income women and youth further into marginal conditions of survival, increasing their social vulnerability in comparison with other groups in a society.

Issues

Social vulnerability is often considered in light of specific hazards or catastrophes—disease, disasters, displacements by war, and others—but they also look at conditions of chronic vulnerability in light of social exclusion, which relates to poverty, marginality, and lack of integration. Much debate exists around these issues, especially as pertains to hot button topics such as climate change, global economics, and the impact of global markets on the environment and on vulnerable societies. Social vulnerability is also intricately tied to issues of poverty, understanding poverty as a state of lack and deterioration, where individuals and whole groups must cope with the absence of elements essential to daily subsistence, social integration, and personal fulfillment.

Depending on the kind of indicators used to assess the lack of basic essentials, it will be possible to see which structural difficulties are at the root of the problem. It is important to note that poverty is often assessed as relative; that is, it is possible for people whose basic needs are covered to be considered poor relative to the income and access conditions for the rest of the population. People are placed in a specific situation of social vulnerability when historic and systemic causes exist for relative poverty, such as structural racism and other forms of discrimination. These structural or ingrained situations hinder vulnerable populations from reaching mainstream levels of prosperity and social integration. That is, a group is placed in a situation of social vulnerability when its poverty is rooted in historical oppression and exclusion from the resources that benefit other individuals in that society. These conditions tend to create and perpetuate social vulnerability, because the potential to transmit exclusion to future generations is considered a risk and an element of social vulnerability.

The social condition of being “at-risk” for anything—dropping out of high school, accumulating debt, becoming unemployed—implies a diversity of situations that represent social vulnerability, a multi-dimensional and complex category. It may also include situations of precariousness for people who are not necessarily poor, such as workforce insecurity in a “gig economy,” a labor market largely based on temporary jobs and no work benefits or guarantees. For these reasons, experts argue that to examine social vulnerability effectively, it is important to begin by examining the heterogeneities, that is, the differences, in the level of insecurity, fragility, and risk to individuals, family units, and communities. Moreover, to examine them in their specific social contexts rather than solely by their material dimensions, such as where they live or their apparent wealth.

Terms & Concepts

Hazard: Often used interchangeably with “risk,” refers to potential harm or peril.

Indicators: Units of measurement for social or material conditions.

Inequality: Difference and relationships among individuals or situations that are not equal. In social sciences, it is used to indicate a status and economic unbalance between groups of people.

Material Conditions: The organization and development of the productive elements of society.

Social Exclusion: Often used interchangeably with marginalization, and the opposite of social inclusion. “Social exclusion” is a term used across a variety of social science fields to indicate a how some groups are pushed to the margins of society.

Systemic Causes: The inherent and implicit roots of a problem, which are embedded in a whole system rather than dependent upon specific isolated factors.