Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change
Social Inequality Effects of Climate‐Change‐Related Disasters: A Systematic Literature Review in the Context of Developing Countries
2026-05-28
The impacts of climate change‐related disasters have garnered significant attention in policy discourse and scientific research, particularly in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs). However, the impacts of climate change‐induced disaster shocks on social structure and equity (i.e., social inequality effects) in LMICs are under‐researched and poorly understood. We conduct a systematic literature review to better understand how climate‐change‐related disasters affect the distribution of income, wealth, and well‐being in agrarian LMICs. Using a conceptual approach that focuses on the disproportionality in climate‐related disaster risks, as well as their impacts and burdens, we analyze the literature by retrieving research papers from the Scopus ( n = 596), ScienceDirect ( n = 644), and Web of Science ( n = 583) databases. Most reviewed studies suggest that climate change‐related disasters tend to exacerbate socioeconomic and sociodemographic inequalities, particularly between small and large landholders in agrarian societies in LMICs, though only a few document reductions in these inequalities. The opportunity to reduce and transform climate‐related risks into adaptive capacity, enabling marginalized groups to equalize their share of climate burdens, is being taken up by only a few farmers. We posit that, without appropriate interventions for equity and social justice, climate change impacts are likely to generate, ceteris paribus, cascading adverse impacts on social equality. Our findings underscore the need to adopt an equity and social justice approach in climate change research, and we call for the adoption of a Social Inequality‐lens‐based policy approach, along with the formulation of social equity‐ and climate justice‐based adaptation programming. This article is categorized under: Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Observed Impacts of Climate Change Climate and Development > Social Justice and the Politics of Development Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Learning from Cases and Analogies