ABSTRACT
Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to disasters in the world. In this context, disaster preparedness is a burning issue in recent times to adapt and mitigate the impacts of disaster shocks and damages. We attempt to investigate the impact of human capital on disaster preparedness in coastal Bangladesh. In this backdrop, we selected six villages from Assasuni Upazila in Satkhira district of Bangladesh. We applied descriptive statistics with logit and Poisson regression for empirical analysis. Main findings suggest a substantial positive impact of educational status of male and female household heads and experience of disasters faced previously on taking disaster preparedness and the number of adopted preparedness and the results are statistically significant in both econometric models used. Findings also reveal that there exists a positive impact of age and monthly income of sampled households, household size, number of male and female members, children and older persons in the family, duration of current residence, number of disasters faced, financial loss/damages in disasters, and number of participated session or training about disaster preparedness on adopting disaster preparedness and number of taken disaster preparedness and again, the results are also statistically significant for these explanatory variables in both models used and mentioned previously. We recommend disaster insurance as a preparedness measure against disasters together with the increase of number of discussion session or training on disasters-related issues like climate change, the impact of climate change, climate change–induced hazards and disasters, and increase the financial support or aid for the affected people in this study areas as well as people exposed to natural disasters in southwestern Bangladesh. The aim is to lessen their loss or damage in disasters faced and to lessen their cost of taking preparedness measures against disasters, as there is adverse impact of these two factors on taking preparedness measures and number of taken preparedness measures against disasters.
