Gendered Effects of Climate Shock on Welfare: The Roles of Remittance and Mobile Money in Somalia

Hiwot Mesfin and Musa Hasen Ahmed

Review of Development Economics, 2026, vol. 30, issue 3, 1435-1453

Abstract: This study investigates the impact of climate shock on Somali households' welfare status and examines the mediating roles of remittances and mobile money in enhancing households' coping capacity. Using a combination of fixed‐effects regression models and an inverse probability weighting method along with a structural equation model, our analysis demonstrates that climate shock has adverse effects on various welfare indicators for both female‐ and male‐headed households. However, we find that female‐headed households are more likely to fall below the poverty line, have a larger poverty depth, and shift their diet due to climate shock than male‐headed households. Interestingly, we find that remittances decrease following climate shock, both on average and for female‐headed households, but such reduction does not have a significant adverse effect on the households' coping ability. This could be an indication that Somali households rely on other coping mechanisms for shocks rather than remittances. Similarly, even though we find that mobile money increases the likelihood of receiving remittances, we find no evidence that this translates into a higher coping ability to climate shock. Thus, targeted policy measures are essential to enhance the resilience of female‐headed households to climate shocks, and further research is needed to identify and strengthen coping strategies, especially for households led by women.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.13207

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:30:y:2026:i:3:p:1435-1453

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1363-6669

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Development Economics is currently edited by E. Kwan Choi

More articles in Review of Development Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().