This rapid literature review from the Knowledge, Evidence and Learning for Development programme summarises the evidence on how social inequalities and discrimination shape vulnerability to crises. It focuses on inequalities arising from discrimination based on gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, sex characteristics, and religious belief, and asks whether and how those inequalities and the discriminatory norms and practices attached to them affect people's experience of a severe humanitarian crisis.

The review is organised around limited resilience and heightened exposure, vulnerability to targeted protection threats, vulnerability to deprivation and its consequences, and vulnerability to exclusion from humanitarian response. It deals mainly with impacts on individuals, and closes with a shorter section summarising what is known about the effect of social inequalities and discrimination on collective vulnerability to crises.