Vulnerability: a view from different disciplines

Jeffrey Alwang, Paul B. Siegel and Steen L. Jorgensen

No 23304, Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes from The World Bank

Abstract: Practitioners from different disciplines use different meanings and concepts of vulnerability, which, in turn, have led to diverse methods of measuring it. This paper presents a selective review of the literature from several disciplines to examine how they define and measure vulnerability. The disciplines include economics, sociology/anthropology, disaster management, environmental science, and health/nutrition. Differences between the disciplines can be explained by their tendency to focus on different components of risk, household responses to risk and welfare outcomes. In general, they focus either on the risks (at one extreme) or the underlying conditions (or outcomes) at the other. Trade-offs exist between simple measurement schemes and rich conceptual understanding.

Keywords: Environmental Economics&Policies; Health Economics&Finance; Insurance&Risk Mitigation; Economic Theory&Research; Rural Poverty Reduction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001-06-30
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (106)

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