The sweat, the stress, the smog. Extreme heat isn’t just unpleasant. It’s deadly.
Today, climate change, supercharged by the burning of fossil fuels, is contributing to rising temperatures and shattered records worldwide – just as this year’s El Niño threatens dangerous shifts in regional weather patterns.
Extreme heat is one of the most unequal consequences of the climate crisis and its impacts are already playing out in women’s daily lives. Gender plays an active role in heat exposure, as do factors like age, social and economic resources, and geography.
Extreme temperatures affect women and girls differently than men and boys – not just because of biology, but because of gendered norms.
If extreme heat isn’t gender-neutral, adaptation strategies and awareness campaigns can’t be, either. Learn what rising temperatures mean for women’s health, labour, and safety.
How extreme heat affects women’s health
Basic physiological factors can make it tougher for women to cool down.
- Perspiration and heart capacity: Sweat is the natural way in which the body cools itself. But women, beginning in adolescence, sweat less than Women’s hearts, which tend to be smaller, experience greater strain under heat stress.
- Hormones: Women’s menstrual cycles cause natural fluctuations in core body temperature – but they can also make hot days feel even more physically and mentally draining. For women experiencing menopause, hot flashes reach new levels of discomfort when ambient temperatures are also high.
- Age: While all aging bodies have less capacity to cool themselves, elderly women sweat half as muchas elderly men. (Many elderly women also have less financial security, and may not be able to afford cooling systems.) Children, too, rely on others to make sure they stay cool and hydrated, and to spot the signs of heat illness.
- Pregnancy: Being pregnant means the body has to work harder to regulate its temperature, so pregnant people are more prone to heat illness and dehydration. Studies on extreme heat exposure have found increases in pre-term birth, lower birth weights, birth defects, and tragic stillbirths, along with other risks to the pregnant mother, like hypertension.
- Chronic health conditions: Heat stress can worsen conditions like diabetes, asthma, and cardiovascular disease, increasing the risk of death. And certain conditions, such as dementia and anxiety – or their medications – can make it harder to recognise the signs of heat illness.
Heat exposure also takes a toll on mental health. Not only does it increase feelings of confusion and fatigue, but many people isolate themselves to avoid the heat outside, which may cut off the social interactions and support they rely on. Research suggests that greater community, like friends who check in on one another, can help mitigate both physical and mental heat risks.
Nearly half a million people die from heat illness every year, with large spikes during heatwaves. With awareness and intervention, many of these deaths could be prevented.
Why extreme heat worsens gender inequality
What happens when these biological differences intersect with social norms, poverty, and conflict?
This is what extreme heat looks like in women’s daily lives.
Who is the most vulnerable to extreme heat?
The women and girls most vulnerable live in conflict zones, disaster-affected areas, rural communities, or slums.
There may be little to no electricity (or the money to pay for it) to power fans, refrigerators, or air conditioning; a lack of proper shelter and shade; fewer economic opportunities and jobs in harmful conditions; and inadequate local infrastructure means less healthcare facilities, care networks, green spaces, survivor support, and cooling centres.
Those who contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions and have the fewest resources to adapt are being hardest hit by extreme heat and other climate impacts.
Drinking water, sanitation, and heat risk for women and girls
Water can mean the difference between life and death as temperatures push the boundaries of our bodies’ ability to function. Yet 1 in 4 women and girls lack access to safe drinking water.
In places that lack clean or affordable water – to drink, bathe, swim, or otherwise cool off – many women and girls shoulder the responsibility of collecting water for their households. That can mean long treks outside, which are made even more treacherous in extreme temperatures.
When women and girls know they don’t have easy or safe access to toilets or latrines, they may avoid drinking as much water as they should. For someone menstruating, the discomfort brought on by the combination of heat and lack of sanitation can lead them to miss work, school, or other opportunities. Two in five women worldwide lack access to toilets right now.
Women’s unpaid care work and double exposure to extreme heat
Men hold the majority of heavily exposed outdoor jobs, like construction and agriculture, and suffer higher rates of heat-related workplace fatalities. All workers benefit when there are adequate workplace heat protections, including hydration breaks and heat-appropriate uniforms.
But women often juggle their employment with more than their fair share of unpaid care responsibilities. That includes caring for children, the elderly, and neighbours and relatives – work that must be done by someone regardless of a heatwave or drought. A woman farmer, for example, may work a double shift, risking more heat exposure: farming in the field or manually irrigating crops under direct sun, then cooking for her family in a hot kitchen.
Women experience more health issues related to their time spent indoors, whether it’s cooking family meals in uncooled homes or working in unventilated garment factories or crowded markets. Women in informal labour markets have even fewer workplace heat protections, like the right to take a break at the hottest part of the day. Dangerous heat conditions also lower productivity, which may mean less income for informal workers.
Extreme heat and violence against women
Heat is aggravating – especially for people who don’t have access to green spaces or cooling or are already under physical and emotional stress.
That aggravation isn’t just about discomfort and frustration. Unfortunately, studies show extreme heat leads to higher rates of violence, including domestic abuse.
These risks interact. During a heatwave, women and girls who are trapped in abusive families may be at greater risk of violence while also unable to escape their homes for cooler, safer locations.
Additional studies show increases in violent crimes, spikes in regional conflict, and widespread displacement – all of which are made worse when heat leads to drought and food insecurity. In many parts of the world, when families are left trying to cope with resource scarcity, their young daughters are more likely to be forced into child marriage.
The world needs gender-responsive solutions to tackle extreme heat
As temperatures continue to break records, we can see – and feel – that much more must be done to mitigate and adapt for climate change. Together with feminists and justice advocates, UN Women is working to ensure that these solutions account for the ways in which women and girls are deeply impacted.
UN Women:
- Uplifts women’s leadership in climate solutions.
- Advocates for essential gender-disaggregated data on extreme heat vulnerabilities.
- Supports the implementation of the Belem Gender Action Plan for climate.
- Works directly with women farmers to build resilience.
- Promotes the recognition of and the more equal distribution of care work.
- Provides gender-responsive recommendations for humanitarian and disaster risk reduction so that practitioners can be better prepared to meet the needs of women and girls.
- Coordinates across the United Nations system to ensure solutions are sustainable, effective, and equitable.
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