Speaker
Description
This study highlights how rising temperatures due to climate change are amplifying gender inequality in developing countries. Using a rich district-level panel dataset from the Census of India and household surveys (1987–2018), we find that in regions with a high share of poor, landless farmers, as rising temperatures leave the agricultural sector less productive and more volatile, male agricultural laborers are increasingly transitioning into non-agricultural work. In contrast, female laborers remain trapped in agriculture and are unable to shift. We argue that entrenched gender norms impose significant costs of transition on women, which limit their ability to move sectors. We further explore additional mechanisms that exacerbate this pattern, which include declining rural-urban marriage migration of women, poor transport infrastructure, and lack of skills. Additionally, we find that as more women remain in agriculture and take on higher-valued tasks previously performed by men, their weak bargaining power leads to declining wages relative to men, which widens the gender wage gap.
| Keyword | Gender Economics |
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