This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: New Northwestern University research aims to shed light on what drives inequalities among men in the aftermath of megadisasters. In such situations, men are often depicted as heroic leaders, and this study finds that many of them experience improved mental and physical health while assisting with recovery efforts.
However, for some men, the boost is short-lived once recovery activities are completed, leading to emotional lows and potentially increasing the risk of suicide. Rebecca Ewert, an assistant professor of instruction in sociology at Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and author of the study published in Gender & Society, grew up in Shasta County, California. After the county was devastated by the Carr wildfire in 2018, she spent six months conducting in-depth interviews with survivors and disaster relief workers about their experiences, hoping to isolate factors contributing to the risk of suicide.
Prior to the fire, risk of suicide among men in the county had been about twice the state average, with men accounting for approximately 80% of suicides. After the fire, Ewert said she found men were doing better than expected. "After a disaster of this magnitude, you'd reasonably expect survivors to feel anger and depression, but my interviews revealed some men experienced a boost in their mental health." Ewert found that relief efforts following the Carr fire in Shasta County gave local men an opportunity to show publicly how they care for their families—protecting property, securing housing and clearing debris—which gave some of them a sense of purpose and helped them feel connected to others.
Ewert calls the phenomenon of finding heightened purpose and belonging in an intense and time-bound situation "provisional masculine resources." The intense and temporary characteristics of disasters are key to accessing these opportunities. As recovery activities wrapped up, men said those feelings of well-being diminished. Focusing on inequalities among men, Ewert's interviews showed survivor responses varied dramatically depending on age.
Disaster response activities provided primarily younger and retired men with noticeable improvements in purpose and vitality, while middle-aged men with families and careers did not notice such a boost. And, as recovery activities wrapped up, the boost declined for elderly men (those at highest risk for suicide), leaving them worse off in the long run. Ewert says these men were worse off in the long term because the stories shared by community members and documented by news outlets around the time of the fire reinforced narrowly defined gender roles that disadvantage both men and women.
As the fire recovery period ended, elderly men lost those opportunities to act manly and had many new, memorable stories reminding them of the capacity they have now again lost. Ewert said this temporary character of "provisional masculine resources" is what makes them so influential on men's health. "Provisional masculine resources allow some men opportunities to reap gendered rewards while excluding others," Ewert said.
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