Fractured livelihoods and gendered recovery: Baseline evidence on occupational displacement and gender disparities in disaster-affected coastal communities of Bangladesh

Disasters seldom affect communities evenly. Where pre-existing inequalities are sharp, they tend to widen further, and the coastal belt of south-western Bangladesh offers a clear case in point. This paper presents baseline findings from a mixed-methods study carried out in three unions of Dacope upazila, Khulna District (Kailashganj, Laudob, and Bajua) between August and September 2025. Data were drawn from 198 household surveys, 10 focus group discussions, and 20 key informant interviews. We find that 44.9% of households experienced complete livelihood loss following recurrent cyclones, flooding, and salinity intrusion, and that 38.4% reported substantially reduced income. Female-headed households earned, on average, BDT 3,550 (about 45%) less per month than male-headed households. Roughly four out of five households held no formal bank account, and 63.2% of those who borrowed depended on informal moneylenders charging effective annual rates of 180–300%. Women reported sharper time constraints from caregiving, narrower mobility, and limited authority over productive and community decisions. Demand for skills training was nonetheless high: 71.7% of respondents expressed strong interest, with women (77%) above men (67%). Qualitative evidence suggests that the gap between this demand and historical uptake is largely supply-side, not motivational. Single-component recovery programmes are unlikely to reach the most constrained households. Gender-responsive integrated packages that combine training, fair-rate microcredit, childcare support, and household-level engagement appear necessary for durable recovery in this setting.