Climate-Induced Migration and Urban Precarity: A Sociological Analysis of Displacement, Gendered Vulnerability, and Social Stratification in Post-2022 Flood Pakistan

Abstract

: In June–August 2022, approximately 8 million people in Pakistan were forced to flee their homes due to catastrophic floods, marking one of the largest climate-induced migration events in South Asia. The sociological aspects of this displacement are analysed in this article, with the help of the concepts of environmental sociology, intersectionality theory and the urban precarity studies. The study employs a qualitative document analysis and secondary analysis of data from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) and sociological literature reviewed from peer-reviewed research to study the way climate induced migration reproduces and exacerbates patterns of social stratification, specifically gendered vulnerability in urban informal settlements. The findings indicate a highly classed, gendered and locational division of displacement. Landless women in Sindh and Balochistan are more at risk of being victims of gender-based violence, less likely to have access to reproductive health care, and less likely to have a voice in determining who can migrate and who cannot. Once they arrive in the destination cities of Pakistan like Karachi and Lahore, climate migrants are directed into informal settlements (Katchi Abadises) where they face precarious livelihood, lack of infrastructure and tenure insecurity. The article concludes that the 2022 floods have exacerbated the emergence of a new urban underclass, and that recovery efforts must be sustainable and involve multi-sectoral policy approaches to tackle the structural drivers of vulnerability.