In the eye of the storm: gendered impacts of climate change in Africa

Abstract

This dissertation explores the climate change and gender inequality nexus with a focus on Africa. The research question is: Is climate change likely to exacerbate gender inequality across countries and time? The two complementary hypotheses are H1: Countries with higher climate change impacts will show greater gender inequality than those with lower climate change impacts; and H2: The intensity of the impact of climate change on gender inequality increases over time. To test such hypotheses, I employ a multiple cross-country regression model. The study examines various dimensions of gender inequality circa 2010 and circa 2019. The dependent variables are the reproductive health index and the gender gaps in average years of schooling, enrollment rates, and labor force participation. Independent variables include disaster frequency (accumulated over 10 years), GDP per capita, agricultural dependency, dependency ratio, urbanization rate, extreme poverty rate, and civil wars. I formulate a core model with these variables, augmented models with additional variables and perform robustness checks. The key findings reveal that disaster frequency counterintuitively narrows the average years of schooling gap, while it worsens reproductive health. Additionally, agricultural dependency and the dependency ratio emerge as significant factors influencing most dimensions of gender inequality. Extreme poverty, GDP per capita, and civil wars also have explanatory power for certain gender inequality variables.