Women Are At Much Greater Risk From Extreme Heat, New Atlantic Council Study Finds

As temperatures soar into the triple digits for days and weeks on end this summer, breaking historic records, a new study found that women are at much greater risk from the extreme heat, health-wise and economically – and drain economies in the process. Extreme heat also limits economic opportunities for women, exacerbating the economic gender gap. This new study estimates that, “heat-related losses women experience by 260%, in contrast to 76% for men.”

The study, conducted by the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council (Arsht-Rock), estimates a whopping,“US $120 billion each year (emphasis added) in heat-related losses to women’s paid labor productivity across India, Nigeria, and the United States alone — financial and livelihood losses that are pushing the most financially vulnerable women below or further below the poverty line.” The study added that this cost could balloon to US $500 billion per year in heat-related losses to women’s labor, if sufficient steps to mitigate and adapt to climate change are not taken. “The study covered those three countries to consider geographically and socioeconomically-different countries.

“Heat affects the health of women. It affects the health of everybody, but it's disproportionately burdening women, physiologically, culturally, the clothes that we wear, responsibilities we have culturally. still providing all of the things that the family needs,” Kathy Baughman McLeod, Director of Arsht-Rock said at the Sun Valley Forum recently. “Oftentimes they're the primary breadwinners, they're the social cohesion,” she said, adding that, “the number one thing pushing them back into poverty is the climate impacts of heat and floods.”

Because women are paid less than men for the same work, the financial losses have a much more severe impact on women and their families. The Atlantic Council reports that women earn 20% less than men on average worldwide, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in April 2023 that women’s wages in the U.S. are 84% of men’s.

Unpaid domestic work, most often done by women, as an “invisible dimension of worker productivity”

Then there’s unpaid domestic labor, which this study calls “an ‘invisible dimension of worker productivity that is rarely studied, valued or reflected in GDP statistics.” But this unpaid work, “such as cooking, cleaning, obtaining food and water for the family,” as well as caregiving, “accounts for between 40 to 70 percent of working hours across the three countries,” according to the study.

“The inclusion of unpaid work in our analysis increases the estimate of heat-related losses women experience by 260%, in contrast to 76% for men. These losses bear heavily on the well-being of women and their families and have knock-on impacts across societies on basic needs such as childcare and family nutrition. Furthermore, over the longer term, they will inhibit female education, labor market inclusion, and broader economic development,” Arsht-Rock said in their press release.

Women working 15% more unpaid hours in the United States, according to the Arsht-Rock study, has profound economic, health, social and political consequences, including holding back women’s educations as well as the economy as a whole.

“Time poverty”

It’s not just about men sitting on the couch watching football while women cook, clean and watch the kids. “Time poverty.”” is a real thing and disproportionately affects women’s earning power and wellbeing, because, well, there are only 24 hours in a day. “Often, unpaid domestic work is unequally allocated to women, which can make it harder to access or succeed in the labor market, leading to lower productivity and lower salaries. It also reduces the time available for healthcare and personal well-being.” Black women are hit even harder, because they tend to be employed in lower-wage jobs and those with fewer protections, the study found.

Another study last year conducted by the Center for American Progress in the U.S., found that, “Regardless of age or parental status, women were a staggering five to eight times more likely to experience a caregiving impact on their employment in 2022.³⁰ “ This is in part because, “Wide swaths of the workforce lack paid leave and other important protections that support labor force engagement, leading many women to either reduce their work hours or drop out of the labor force entirely. A massive gender gap exists in the share of women and men who are either not working or working part time because of childcare or family reasons.”

A call to policymakers and employers

“Extreme heat is quietly but profoundly brutalizing women worldwide,” Baughman McLeod added in the release. “This landmark study finally arms employers, policymakers, and advocates with the data to measure the far-reaching costs of extreme heat to women. In doing so, we are blazing a trail for social, economic, and policy solutions that will save lives and bolster economies and communities.”

President Biden unveiled about $160 million in federal funding to improve weather forecasting related to heat impacts, to improve water storage in drought-stricken areas, and to beef up worker protections the other day. The funding will come from either the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment Act.