Women’s Income Loss From Climate Change Is Much Higher Than Men’s

Climate change disproportionately impacts the world’s most vulnerable people, such as the old and the poor. Now, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has found that there is a large disparity between men and women when it comes to income loss caused by global warming.

The difference is stark: Heat causes female-headed households in rural areas to lose 8 percent of their income as compared to male-headed households, and floods cause them to lose 3 percent. The FAO used data from 24 low- and middle-income countries.

There are a number of reasons behind this, one of which is that women are much less likely to own land than men. When they do, that land is often smaller and of poorer quality than that owned by men, according to the FAO. Women therefore have less access to insurance as well as credit and farm services, leaving them much less protected than men when climate stressors occur.

Households headed by women start off at an economic disadvantage as compared to households headed by men or a couple. Women are generally also burdened with caring for children in addition to farming and raising livestock, giving them less time and potential sources of income than men — this means women are less able to employ adaptive strategies during an agricultural crisis.

Additionally, rural women take on more of the work burden as compared to men when extreme weather events occur, but also lose more income opportunities, the FAO writes. Floods and droughts also “significantly increase” the hours that women work per week relative to men.

“Social differences based on locations, wealth, gender and age have a powerful, yet poorly understood, impact on rural peoples’ vulnerability to the impacts of the climate crisis,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.

The long-term implications of climate change for women are dire, with the FAO predicting that a 1 degree Celsius rise in long-term average temperatures reduces the average income of female-headed households by 34 percent compared to that of male-headed households.

On top of all this, a study by the FAO last year found that about 80 percent of agricultural policies in 68 low- and middle-income countries did not take into account the unique challenges women face when it comes to climate change.

“Rural people and their climate vulnerabilities are barely visible in national climate policies,” the FAO writes in its newer report. In the 24 countries the organization analyzed, just 6 percent of the 4,164 climate actions proposed even mentioned women.

“These findings highlight the urgent need to dedicate substantially more financial resources and policy attention to issues of inclusivity and resilience in global and national climate actions,” Qu said.