The conceptualization of social equity in public administration and emergency management has been subjective to the user of the term. While the vagueness of the concept provides fertile grounds for intellectual debate, the failure to arrive at a single and formal definition leads to confusion and an inability to measure it as a programmatic or policy goal. For emergency management, how scholars define social equity within research is profoundly important for assessing and making recommendations related to governmental practices that have social equity as its guiding principle. To address this detrimental definitional situation, this research analyzes 15 years of social equity related peer‐reviewed articles in highly ranked emergency management journals. This manuscript concludes with a proposed working definition of social equity, recommendations to measure the concept, and a discussion of its implications for future research and practice.