Integrating Intersectionality Into Climate Risk Assessments: Review of Gendered Vulnerability in South Africa

Abstract

Understanding how gender inequality intersects with escalating climate change impacts is critical for informing climate adaptation responses that reduce vulnerability and inequality. To better understand gendered vulnerability, we develop and apply an intersectional climate risk framework, based on a systematic literature review of 52 articles. South Africa is used as a case study to apply the framework to understand how climate hazards (such as changing temperatures, droughts, and floods) exacerbate conditions of poverty and poor infrastructure and services, and the impact on women. Economic aspects, such as income and livelihood, most frequently intersected with gender to affect climate vulnerability, followed by levels of education, knowledge, and awareness. Paradoxically, childcare was found to both increase vulnerability in some ways, yet also to decrease vulnerability by motivating women to overcome hardship for their children's sake. Responses to climate impacts indicate that many households are barely coping, while some community-level efforts appear to reduce vulnerability. Gendered approaches to disaster risk reduction, including gender-sensitive shelter, early warning systems, and information sharing, are needed. Broader priorities include strengthening women's economic inclusion, for example through urban planning that supports informal trade, and dismantling patriarchal values that underpin gender-based violence, unequal land ownership, and household labor. Gendered vulnerability is deeply entwined with historical and socioeconomic factors, requiring nuanced, context-specific approaches beyond binary comparisons to inform equitable climate adaptation responses. This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Learning from Cases and Analogies Integrated Assessment of Climate Change > Methods of Integrated Assessment of Climate Change.