Gender disparity of household composition predicts poor with high well-being community member with climate change experience in Sabak Bernam

This paper investigates the intricate relationships between well-being, household income, poverty status, and gender dynamics in the context of climate change impacts on coastal communities in Sabak Bernam, Selangor. Specifically, it aims to explore the relationships between well-being and household income, examine the connection between poverty status and well-being levels based on the gender of respondents and household heads, and identify how household gender composition predicts respondents who are poor but have high well-being. The livelihoods of Sabak Bernam residents are predominantly based on agriculture and fisheries. These activities are highly vulnerable to climate change. Respondents reported experiencing climate-related events such as declining fish stocks, extreme weather disruptions, including floods or droughts, and coastal habitat degradation. These events have exacerbated economic instability and gender disparities by disproportionately affecting income sources and increasing caregiving burdens during disasters. Among 265 residents of Sabak Bernam selected through purposive sampling to represent the diverse backgrounds of coastal communities in the area, only 230 reported experiencing climate change. The Pearson correlation test revealed a significant positive relationship between well-being and household income among males in male-headed households with climate change exposure, p<0.05 and r=0.186. When categorising households by poverty, using a Poverty Line Income cutoff of RM2,589, and well-being levels, chi-square tests showed significant associations, p<0.05, for females in male-headed households with climate change experience. Most respondents, 55.26%, were high-well-being and non-poor, while 48.98% of females with climate change exposure fell into this category. Further analysis highlighted gendered disparities. Among high-well-being females in non-poor households, 28.75% had more male members, whereas 21.3% of high-well-being females in poor households had more female members. The findings indicated that female respondents in male-headed households with climate change experience show significant poverty and well-being linkages. This suggests that women may bear disproportionate burdens, such as lost income and care work during disasters. In addition, a binary logistic regression involving n=230 identified households with fewer males, defined as a male-to-female ratio below 1, as 2.03 times more likely to be poor yet report high well-being, p<0.05. This leads to the conclusion that lower male ratios correlate with high well-being despite poverty. This could imply female resilience, such as diversified livelihoods, or hidden hardships, such as women sacrificing their well-being to sustain households. Overall, these findings underscore how climate change may interact with gendered livelihood vulnerabilities in these agricultural- and fisheries-dependent communities, emphasising the need for targeted interventions to safeguard well-being amid ecological and economic shocks.

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