What shapes rural resilience and vulnerability? Evidence from a global meta-analysis

Abstract

Rural vulnerability and resilience are intrinsically linked yet denote non-equivalent dimensions of how rural communities experience and respond to risk. Yet the existing literature tends to synthesize these concepts separately or treat them as inverse proxies, leaving it unclear whether particular determinants signify shared adaptive capacities or merely reflect exposure, recovery, or structural dependence. This study employs paired yet independent meta-analytic syntheses of quantitative rural evidence, reconciling reported associations while carefully preserving the conceptual separation between the two outcomes. Three findings emerge: (1) A convergent capacity core appears across both syntheses: education, health, socioeconomic resources, physical and natural capital, and adaptive livelihood strategies consistently correspond with lower vulnerability and higher resilience, whereas heavy agricultural dependence displays a divergent trend. (2) The convergence between the two syntheses is, however, incomplete: exposure, financing, human-capital, household composition, and accessibility factors reveal outcome-specific trajectories, thereby reinforcing the notion that vulnerability and resilience capture discrete stages of the risk process rather than opposing ends of a linear continuum. (3) The associations vary substantially across studies, precluding the identification of stable global effect magnitudes. This variability likely stems from differences in contextual, methodological, or specification choices. The synthesis therefore advocates using global evidence as a diagnostic scaffold for locally grounded assessment, rather than as a basis for ranking universal interventions.

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