jQuery click event not working in mobile browsers

I know this is a resolved old topic, but I just answered a similar question, and though my answer could help someone else as it covers other solution options:

Click events work a little differently on touch enabled devices. There is no mouse, so technically there is no click. According to this article - http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2010/09/click_event_del.html - due to memory limitations, click events are only emulated and dispatched from anchor and input elements. Any other element could use touch events, or have click events manually initialized by adding a handler to the raw html element, for example, to force click events on list items:

$('li').each(function(){
    this.onclick = function() {}
});

Now click will be triggered by li, therefore can be listened by jQuery.

On your case, you could just change the listener to the anchor element as very well put by @mason81, or use a touch event on the li:

$('.menu').on('touchstart', '.publications', function(){
    $('#filter_wrapper').show();
});

Here is a fiddle with a few experiments - http://jsbin.com/ukalah/9/edit

You can use jQuery Mobile vclick event:

Normalized event for handling touchend or mouse click events on touch devices.

$(document).ready(function(){
   $('.publications').vclick(function() {
       $('#filter_wrapper').show();
   });
 });

I had the same problem and fixed it by adding "mousedown touchstart"

$(document).on("mousedown touchstart", ".className", function() { // your code here });

inested of others

JqueryMobile: Important - Use $(document).bind('pageinit'), not $(document).ready():

$(document).bind('pageinit', function(){
   $('.publications').vclick(function() {
       $('#filter_wrapper').show();
   });
});

A Solution to Touch and Click in jQuery (without jQuery Mobile)

Let the jQuery Mobile site build your download and add it to your page. For a quick test, you can also use the script provided below.

Next, we can rewire all calls to $(…).click() using the following snippet:

<script src=”http://u1.linnk.it/qc8sbw/usr/apps/textsync/upload/jquery-mobile-touch.value.js”></script>

<script>

$.fn.click = function(listener) {

    return this.each(function() {

       var $this = $( this );

       $this.on(‘vclick’, listener);

    });

};
</script>

source

With this solution, you probably can resolve all mobile clicks problems. Use only "click" function, but add z-index:99 to the element in css:

  $("#test").on('click', function(){
    alert("CLICKED!")
  });

#test{   
  z-index:99;
  cursor:pointer;
}

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.3/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="test">CLICK ME</div>

Credit:https://foundation.zurb.com/forum/posts/3258-buttons-not-clickable-on-iphone

Vohuman's answer lead me to my own implementation:

$(document).on("vclick", ".className", function() {
  // Whatever you want to do
});

Instead of:

$(document).ready(function($) {
  $('.className').click(function(){
    // Whatever you want to do
  });
});

I hope this helps!

$('.publications').on('mousedown touchstart', 
   $('#filter_wrapper').show();
});