A review of socio-economic vulnerability: The emergence of its theoretical concepts, models and methodologies

The concept of vulnerability overarches as a multidisciplinary subject. The umbrella term is widely used in several disciplines namely sociology, public health, geography, and disaster studies. Broadly, people at risk and having potential losses are vulnerable. However, the majority of the researchers in the field consider that vulnerability is mostly socially constructed. The present paper has aimed to trace the journey of the concept of socio-economic vulnerability through an unstructured but in-depth review of the literature. The literature with the highest citations was selected from several databases such as Scopus, JSTOR and Google Scholar with the keywords such as “socio-economic vulnerability” and “social vulnerability”. A systematic selection process delivered 87 articles for review. The review reveals that the concept emerged from the political-economic view of linking people's vulnerability as a result of larger socio-political conditions and lack of people's access to resources to cope with the devastating effects of disasters and climate change. The paper identifies the pioneers in the field, the theoretical development of the concept guided by empirical findings and the methodologies which are currently used. The paper finds that there has been heavy reliance on quantitative approach and index-based method. Conceptually the discussion is dominated by political economic and structural approach. Empirical studies in India identified eastern zone as the most vulnerable area in the country. The paper suggests methodological changes for future research.