Climate-resilient livelihoods among young women feminist assessment of adaptive strategy and economic resilience to the climate crisis

Abstract

The paper tested the notion of climate-resilient livelihoods of young women based on a feminist perspective on a literature review of the adaptive strategies and economic resilience to climate crisis based on high quality secondary evidence published after 2023. The peer-reviewed journal articles and official reports have been systematically examined to determine how the climate stress factors such as drought, random rainfall, heat and water scarcity changed the livelihood systems. The assessment showed that climate pressures reduced production, augmented strain of unpaid care and were subjected to market and institutional risks, and young women were disproportionately hit. They also reported the use of livelihood diversification, climate-smart practices, microenterprise, savings groups, and mobility, but the decision of the pathway was not preferencebased but, rather, feasibility-based, which is unequal access to land, money, information, security, and power of decision-making With the framework of feminist political ecology and feminist economics, it was revealed that the outcome of the adaptation mediated through gendered power relations within households, markets, and governance structure. It was established that adaptation was not gender neutral since similar tactics produced unequal profitability in terms of managing assets, time and income. The short-term coping strategy was found to boost food security in a multiplicity of circumstances, and it could not produce long-term economic sustainability where asset depreciation and debts persisted. Conversely, where the climate finance, advisory, and social protection aligned with the reality of young women, benefits rose, as well as income continuity and food security, but were feeble in reacting to recurrent shocks. The paper has discovered that it will require caresensitive program design and an accountable institution to innovate adaptation to be transformed into longterm economic sustainability and not re-create vulnerability among young women in developing climate sensitive livelihoods.