The impacts of extreme heat on wage losses: Evidence from the Chinese agri‐food industry

Xiaoke Zhu and Qiyun Deng

Agribusiness, 2025, vol. 41, issue 3, 738-764

Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of extremely high temperatures on wage losses for workers in the Chinese agri‐food industry. Our estimated results suggest extreme heat is associated with a decrease in worker wages, and that these welfare losses could be attributed to the adverse impacts of extremely hot days on worker productivity. We also observe that, compared to male workers, female workers are more likely to bear wage losses when exposed to extremely hot weather. Furthermore, workers in private firms may experience more wage losses due to extremely hot days than those in other ownership types. Regarding the industry‐level heterogeneity analysis, we find that wage losses in the agri‐food manufacturing industry are more severe than those in the agri‐food processing industry, while no significant wage losses are observed in the beverages and alcohol industry. In the long term, wage losses induced by climate change are projected to rise by 10.93% under RCP8.5, if no extra adaptation actions are implemented. [EconLit Citations: O13, P46, Q54]

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/agr.21924

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:agribz:v:41:y:2025:i:3:p:738-764

Access Statistics for this article

Agribusiness is currently edited by Ronald W. Cotterill

More articles in Agribusiness from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().