Climate Crisis and Social Inequality: Resilience of Vulnerable Communities Facing Recurrent Disasters in Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56371/ijess.v7i1.790Keywords:
Climate Crisis, Social Inequality, Community Resilience, Recurrent Disasters, VulnerabilityAbstract
The climate crisis does not produce socially uniform impacts. Intensifying hydrometeorological hazards interact with poverty, asset inequality, housing quality, access to services, gender and age inequalities, employment status, and institutional capacity, causing socially vulnerable groups to experience greater losses and slower recovery. This article examines how recurrent disasters can transform community resilience from a learning process into a process of capacity erosion. The study employs a structured integrative review and secondary-data synthesis focused on Indonesia with global comparative evidence. The core literature comprises 40 sources selected for substantive relevance, traceability, publisher quality, and methodological strength; 20 are peer-reviewed international journal articles published between September 2023 and 2026. Current data are drawn primarily from WMO, BNPB, BPS-Statistics Indonesia, UNDRR, IPCC, and the World Bank. Four principal findings emerge. First, repeated exposure does not automatically strengthen resilience; when the interval between shocks is shorter than the time required for recovery, asset losses, debt, livelihood disruption, and impaired social functioning can accumulate. Second, social inequality acts as a risk multiplier by limiting households' ability to mitigate hazards, access assistance, and convert experience into adaptive investment. Third, social capital is essential but finite; recent longitudinal evidence indicates that cumulative disaster exposure can erode bonding social capital, social support, and social functioning. Fourth, adaptive social protection, inclusive governance, risk financing, and ex-ante investment can interrupt cumulative vulnerability. The article's principal novelty is the Cumulative Vulnerability-Resilience Spiral (CVRS), a framework connecting structural inequality, recurrent exposure, recovery debt, depletion of livelihood and social capital, and greater vulnerability to subsequent shocks. The framework advances a dynamic, distributive, and justice-oriented approach to measuring resilience and designing disaster policy in Indonesia. Keywords: climate crisis; social inequality; community resilience; recurrent disasters; vulnerability; adaptive social protection; climate justice.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Syamsiah Badruddin, Adilita Pramanti, Paisal Halim
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