Climate Change and Gender Inequality: Women’s Perceptions of the Mechanisms Linking Climate Change and Gender Inequality in Mali

Abstract This study examines women’s perceptions of the mechanisms linking climate change and gender inequality in Mali. Drawing on 150 semi-structured interviews conducted with women in Segou, Koulikoro, and Bamako, it explores women’s understandings of gender equality, their experiences of climate change, and how they perceive the relationship between climate-related pressures and gender inequality across different local contexts. The findings show that women consistently perceived climate-related pressures as intensifying existing vulnerabilities rather than creating entirely new forms of disadvantage. Respondents identified livelihood disruption, economic insecurity, food insecurity, household stress, and increasing caregiving responsibilities as the principal pathways through which climate-related pressures affected women’s lives. However, important regional differences emerged in how these pathways were interpreted. Women in Segou and Koulikoro were generally more likely to perceive a direct relationship between climate change and gender inequality, often describing climate-related pressures as exacerbating existing social and economic inequalities affecting women. In contrast, many respondents in Bamako recognised that climate-related pressures produced unequal consequences for women while remaining less likely to interpret those consequences as forms of gender inequality. The findings demonstrate that the experience of climate-related inequality and the recognition of gender inequality do not necessarily coincide. By highlighting this distinction, the study contributes to debates on climate vulnerability, gender, and adaptation and demonstrates that understanding climate-related vulnerability requires attention not only to unequal outcomes but also to how those outcomes are interpreted by those who experience them.