Patterns of Vulnerability Among Women in Urban Flooding in Can Tho City, Vietnam

This paper identifies the dimension of the economic impact on women, their additional roles and health problems, and limited capacity in the new flooding context. This research found that when women are exposed to different levels of flooding, they have different susceptibilities. Women in low flooding level are less susceptible and vice versa. The susceptibilities are the economic losses, the external roles and health problems. From the consequences of those susceptibilities, it created the burden on women, which created less opportunities to participate in learning and improving new knowledge compared to men in their families and communities. The research found that women are always more vulnerable than men in flooding disasters. It also meant that women are “victim” subjects. Women faced the problem because of the social norms, it has not been changing in the gender differences. Therefore, society needs to change the way to look at women, not seeing them as "victim" objects. This research used secondary data to review the existing information on socio-economic contexts in order to obtain the overall picture of the field site and the women’s life changes, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and key information personals.