Climate change induced marginality: Households’ vulnerability in the meal consumption frequencies

The paper examines the impact of recent cyclones Sidr and Aila on the vulnerability of the meal consumption frequencies of the marginalized poor households in the southern part of Bangladesh where tropical cyclones persuaded by adverse effect of climate change hit repeatedly the coastal districts. Last two cyclones Sidr in 2007 and Aila in 2009 invaded the southern part of Bangladesh and caused huge death tolls and casualties. The nexus among climate change-marginality and vulnerability is the main focus here. Households become marginalized when cyclones destroy houses, infrastructure, drinking water, sanitation and cropping lands through upsurge of sea water ensuing breaking down the traditional agricultural production system. Propensity score matching technique is used to find the impact of cyclones on vulnerability as the problem of selection biasedness may arise. From the various matching techniques it is evident that households those are affected by any of the last two cyclones Sidr and Aila exhibit about 9 to 14 percentage increase of the vulnerability in the meal consumption frequencies of the marginalized rural households. The ordered probit model demonstrate that the marginal effect of some household characteristics such as number of income sources, non-agricultural activities, migration, education, agricultural land, savings and safe drinking water exhibit significant negative effect whereas wage-earning and distance from roads exhibit positive effect with both extreme and moderate vulnerability.