Inequality in climate change adaptation. The issue of trapped populations

While migration is recognized as an important adaptation strategy to the impacts of climate change, an individual’s ability to move might be restricted by inequalities based on factors such as wealth and gender. Notably, starting with the UK Government’s 2011 Foresight report, academic literature has investigated the possibility that migration might not increase as a consequence of environmental change, but rather slow down. In a variety of national contexts, mainly developing economies and agriculturally dependent countries, there is evidence that less wealthy individuals might end up “trapped”, as they cannot afford to relocate and remain exposed to environmental risk in their origin area. Using Malawi’s Integrated Household Panel Survey as its primary source, this thesis used novel composite wealth, in-situ vulnerability and potential mobility proxies to examine the links between these three factors, look for gender-based differences in their relations and provide a tentative estimate of the share of trapped individuals in the country. It finds that less wealthy individuals display higher levels of vulnerability to climate change and lower potential mobility; results also show that women tend to be less potentially mobile than men on average, while gender-based differences in climate change vulnerability are negligible. Additionally, it estimates that 27-28% of Malawi residents can be classified as “trapped” or “possibly trapped”. While this is a tentative estimate that requires further investigation, it suggests that disparities in wealth might constrain adaptation options for a substantial share of a low-income country’s population.