REBUILDING THE COASTAL ECONOMY

For sociologists Joachim Singelmann and Tim Slack, the Gulf of Mexico’s 2005 hurricane season got more interesting when it was over.

Experts in regional labor market and industry issues, they knew that meeting residents’ basic needs would be just one step toward recovery. The oil and gas economy would have to rebound if communities along the Gulf coast could expect long-term survival.

With funding from the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS), Singelmann and Slack are working to discover how this important economic sector is responding in the wake of the storms and how its concerns are inextricably tied to the people it employs.

Professor Joachim Singelmann and Assistant Professor Tim Slack discuss their research in the Louisiana Population Data Center. Photo Credit: Jason Peak

“We have one of the largest disasters we’ve seen in a long time,” said Singelmann, distinguished professor of sociology and director of the Louisiana Population Data Center. “What has the oil industry done after the hurricanes in terms of employment stability and restructuring? What’s happening to the industrial infrastructure of the Gulf coast?”

Their two-year project will canvass coastal cities across the Gulf coast, including Lake Charles and Johnsons’ Bayou, Louisiana, and Biloxi and Pascagoula, Mississippi. The study employs a unique synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research: “We’re collecting primary data through guided conversations with representatives from the private sector, community-based groups and government,” said Slack, assistant professor of sociology. “We’re also using data from the Census Bureau to get a handle on economic restructuring and labor market impacts at a macro level.”

As Singelmann explains, the value of the interviews comes from the key positions of the respondents. “These are guided conversations with those whose decisions will affect a lot of other people. [They determine] the likelihood of whether companies will stay or new companies will come. If you look at the economic activity stimulated [by each decision-maker], you’re talking about a couple hundred million dollars in multiplied effects per year.”

Because labor and industry rely on one another for mutual survival, Singelmann and Slack also assess conditions facing local workforces. Potential impediments to a strong labor market are the effects of pre-existing social inequities, or vulnerabilities, in income, housing, education and other factors made visible in the storms’ aftermath.

“Social vulnerability,” said Slack, “is the idea that different aspects of society and social structure make certain groups more vulnerable in the wake of storms: the elderly, the low income population, minorities.”

The complex relationship between social vulnerability and industry comes to light in labor shortages in the service economy. “Some of these workers are gone,” explains Slack, “but others have been absorbed into emerging sectors, like construction.” The reason is understandable. “[Those formerly] making minimum wage flipping burgers can now earn twenty bucks an hour pounding nails.”

A lack of low-cost housing exacerbates the labor shortage, as several interviewees related: “Affordable housing is a big issue,” said one Mississippi government representative. “The storm . . . changed everyone’s opinion about what property is worth.”

Singelmann notes that even the distribution of financial aid can complicate this issue. “Most of our rebuilding efforts and assistance focus on homeowners. And who would argue with that? But landlords receive relatively little assistance to rebuild . . . Many thousands of displaced people can’t come back because they’ve lost an apartment.”

Despite the difficulties, Singelmann says the research reveals positive trends. “You have to be careful how you phrase it—it isn’t meant to be callous—but to some extent the hurricane gave [people] opportunities to do things they couldn’t have done before.” As industries rebuild, better choices can be made in construction and human resource management. The results of feasibility studies, impractical to implement before the storm, serve as blueprints for progress.

“Although the storm was a terrible thing,” reported one south Louisiana public official, “it has given us opportunity.”

Singelmann and Slack will continue gathering and analyzing data through the summer of 2008, when a full report will be presented to MMS. In addition to social science publications and policy recommendations, one of the expected products of the study is an index of social vulnerability, developed by graduate research assistant Candice A. Myers.

...from the Autumn 2007 Issue