Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Women will bear the brunt of extreme heat: Research

Arsht-Rock report says extreme heat could kill 204,000 women annually in India, Nigeria and the US

Women will bear the brunt of extreme heat: Research

WOMEN will bear the brunt of extreme heat as more frequent heatwaves on a warming planet pose a growing threat to their work, earnings and lives, researchers have warned.

The impacts of rising heat are disproportionately dangerous and costly to women - be it at home or on the job - according to a report titled 'The Scorching Divide' by the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock).

The US-based non-profit's research, which analysed India, Nigeria and the United States, said that extreme heat could kill 204,000 women annually across the three countries in hot years.

"Extreme heat is quietly but profoundly brutalising women worldwide," said Kathy Baughman McLeod, director of Arsht-Rock. Heat creates a "double burden" for women, the report warned.

"Women are not only more susceptible to physically getting sick from heat, they're also disproportionately expected to care for everyone else who's sick from heat, whether that's paid care or unpaid care," McLeod told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Heatwaves are breaking records around the world and the continued release of planet-heating emissions - largely from the use of coal, oil and gas - will push global temperatures into uncharted territory in the coming years, scientists have said.

The debilitating heat will take its toll on women, forcing them to work longer hours - whether outdoors on a farm, for example, or doing unpaid domestic work like cooking and cleaning at home - for less money or no income at all, the report said.

"Women in poverty are being pushed further into poverty, and women climbing out of poverty are being pulled back in," McLeod said.

With the average number of heatwave days projected to at least double by 2050 in India, Nigeria and the US, women from the poorest and marginalised communities will suffer the biggest blow to their productivity, the report found.

Much of these heat-related productivity losses - pegged at about $120 billion (£93bn) each year across the three countries - are in the context of unpaid household work and linked to lack of access to domestic cooling equipment, according to the research.

About 1.2 billion rural and urban poor globally are expected to be living without cooling solutions by 2030, with 323 million of them in India alone, according to Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), a U.N.-backed organisation working on energy access.

These solutions range from domestic air-conditioning to cold chains for farm produce.

Women spend almost twice as much time than men working at home, taking care of children or older relatives and managing the house - and those who cannot afford air-conditioning experience a bigger hit to their productivity, the report found.

In nations such as Nigeria, where heat exacerbates symptoms of tropical diseases from malaria to yellow fever, mothers bear the "double burden" of looking after themselves and caring for sick family members, amounting to hours of unpaid work.

In Britain, where women from black communities are nearly four times more likely than white women to die in childbirth, climate change will only exacerbate the challenges they face, according to Selvaseelan Selvarajah, a doctor in east London.

While the rich can afford air-conditioning units and electricity costs, the poor cannot, Selvarajah said.

"In poor housing, even if the council gave you air-conditioning, you're paying hundreds of pounds a month for your electricity - you're not going to want to turn it on," he said.

Farm worker Savitri Devi, 40, soldiered through the harsh summer in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh this year, working in fields at temperatures as high as 44 degrees Celsius even as scores of people died during the heatwave in the state in June.

Women in India lose nearly a fifth of their paid working hours to heat, and extreme heat is pushing female wages below the poverty line in sectors including agriculture, which accounts for 70 per cent of total female employment, the report found.

"I obviously suffered working in the sun. I fell ill, and my wages were cut for every hour lost due to the heat. But what do I do? I have to work for money," said Devi, who earns Rs 250 (£2/$3.05) for eight hours of work per day.

Labour experts said rising heat has compounded the problem - particularly for the rural poor. As droughts dent crop harvests and fuel male migration from villages in search of alternative work, women are left behind to take care of farms and families.

Benoy Peter, executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development, a Kerala-based non-profit, said most agricultural work in rural India consists of invisible labour by women - who assume a bigger burden when men migrate to cities.

"So women do the farm work, take care of older people and children. But if they fall ill, there is no one to take them to a health facility," he said.

McLeod of Arsht-Rock said people were starting to understand the effects of heat - from a financial and health perspective - and stressed the need to take urgent action on the issue.

"This crisis, given where our emissions are ... it's only getting worse," she said. "No one has to die from heat. All of these deaths and illness are preventable. We just hope that people pay attention."

(The Thomson Reuters Foundation)

More For You

Air India flight crash
Air India's Boeing 787-8 aircraft, operating flight AI-171 to London Gatwick, crashed into a medical hostel complex shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad on June 12.
Getty Images

Probing all angles in Air India crash, including sabotage: Minister

INDIA’s junior civil aviation minister said on Sunday that all possible angles, including sabotage, were being looked into as part of the investigation into the Air India crash.

All but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner were killed when it crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12. Authorities have identified 19 others who died on the ground. However, a police source told AFP after the crash that the death toll on the ground was 38.

Keep ReadingShow less
Police may probe anti-Israel comments at Glastonbury

Moglai Bap and Mo Chara of Kneecap perform at Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, Britain, June 28, 2025. REUTERS/Jaimi Joy

Police may probe anti-Israel comments at Glastonbury

BRITISH police said they were considering whether to launch an investigation after performers at Glastonbury Festival made anti-Israel comments during their shows.

"We are aware of the comments made by acts on the West Holts Stage at Glastonbury Festival this afternoon," Avon and Somerset Police, in western England, said on X late on Saturday (28).

Keep ReadingShow less
Three killed, dozens injured in India temple stampede

Police officials visit the site after a stampede near Shree Gundicha Temple, in Puri, Odisha, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (PTI Photo)

Three killed, dozens injured in India temple stampede

AT LEAST three people, including two women, died and around 50 others were injured in a stampede near the Shree Gundicha Temple in Puri, Odisha, Indian, on Sunday (29) morning, according to local officials.

The incident occurred around 4am (local time) as hundreds of devotees gathered to witness the Rath Yatra (chariot festival), Puri district collector Siddharth S Swain confirmed.

Keep ReadingShow less
F-35B jet

The UK has agreed to move the aircraft to the Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility at the airport.

Indian Air Force

F-35B jet still stranded in Kerala, UK sends engineers for repair

UK AVIATION engineers are arriving in Thiruvananthapuram to carry out repairs on an F-35B Lightning jet belonging to the Royal Navy, which has remained grounded after an emergency landing 12 days ago.

The jet is part of the HMS Prince of Wales Carrier Strike Group of the UK's Royal Navy. It made the emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram airport on June 14. The aircraft, valued at over USD 110 million, is among the most advanced fighter jets in the world.

Keep ReadingShow less
Ahmedabad air crash
Relatives carry the coffin of a victim, who was killed in the Air India Flight 171 crash, during a funeral ceremony in Ahmedabad on June 15, 2025. (Photo: Getty Images)

Ahmedabad crash: Grief, denial and trauma haunt families

TWO weeks after the crash of Air India flight AI-171 in Ahmedabad, families of victims are grappling with grief and trauma. Psychiatrists are now working closely with many who continue to oscillate between denial and despair.

The crash occurred on June 12, when the London-bound flight hit the BJ Medical College complex shortly after takeoff, killing 241 people on board and 29 on the ground. Only one passenger survived.

Keep ReadingShow less