Social Capital and Food Security in the Face of Disasters: A New Insight from Rural Households in Indonesia

Abstrak

As Indonesia is prone to natural disasters, households need the ability to maintain their resilience and living standards by enhancing social capital in the community. This paper examines the impact of natural disasters on a household’s standard of living measured from food expenditure when social capital exists. Data is obtained from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) 2014 and analysed using a regression model and quantile regression. Our findings show that natural disasters impact poor households more than non-poor ones. When social capital exists, it can help households to maintain their standard of living, as observed by food expenditures. Policies should focus on increasing the household standard of living, so households have a financial buffer to deal with financial shocks like natural disasters. Besides, enhancing social participation at the poor and the lowest administration level is required to create a stronger social capital