Buffering in the intra-household allocation of scarce water in urban Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Abstract

Background: Household water insecurity is an accelerating global challenge with serious negative impacts on human health. The impacts of water insecurity can vary among household members. Biocultural buffering theory can explain the differential allocation of scarce water within households and predicts asymmetric allocation of scarce pooled resources to protect the most vulnerable.

Aim: To test the buffering theory of intra-household water allocation strategies.

Subjects and methods: Twenty reproductive-age women from extremely water-insecure households in Dhaka, Bangladesh, were interviewed and systematically-coded text from the guided interviews and an allocation task were analysed.

Results: Coding revealed 261 instances of buffering. Thematic analysis of allocation reasoning revealed patterning in water distribution within the household.

Conclusion: Household management of scarce water aligns to buffering theories, with women prioritising family members perceived to be vulnerable. These findings open new spaces to theorise how intra-household strategies of water allocation shape individual risk and safeguard human health, reconceptualise the dominant paradigm of negative experiences around living with water insecurity to encompass notions of care and shared wellbeing, and develop more sophisticated views of the mechanisms to connect embodied water insecurity to its individual-level health consequences in human biology.