In India, heat waves are arriving earlier and intensifying every year. In 2022, the country experienced the hottest March and April on record since 1901—this past week, the mercury reached as high as 114.8°F (46°C); nearly a hundred people died as a result, according to official counts. As the frequency and intensity of heat waves increases, so do their impacts. And women suffer the most. “I lose so much in extreme heat,” says Bhano ben Jadav, a 44-year-old woman living in a slum settlement in the city of Ahmedabad, which has some of the highest temperatures in the country. Jadav is part of India’s vast home-based workforce—she makes beaded necklaces, and the long and tedious work is near-impossible in extreme heat. Broadly, more Indian women than men suffer and die from heat-related illnesses. Experts say these factors could halt or even reverse India’s progress in reducing poverty, food and income insecurity, and gender inequality. Here are some of the key reasons why: - Toilet access affects dehydration: Because many homes lack indoor toilets, women who work at home often avoid going outside to relieve themselves, which in turn leads to them drinking less water than they should.
- Fewer protective measures: While no human can cope with working beyond a certain temperature, in India, due to complex gender dynamics, women are less likely than men to intervene by taking protective measures from the heat by seeking shelter, cooling down, and hydrating.
- Solutions, while innovative, have been piecemeal: The Indian government wants to implement more Heat Action Plans, which are meant to guide cities with heatwave preparation and emergency response—but experts tell me that these have not been proven universally effective. In the meantime, women are turning to other, more ad-hoc approaches, like solar reflective paint to cool down their homes, and insurance schemes that offer at least some backstop in case of climate disaster.
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