Stuck in the fields: how rising temperatures deepen gender inequality in rural India

Manisha Mukherjee

No wp-2026-73, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: This paper documents how pre-existing social institutions shape adaptation to climate change in rural India, resulting in a gendered adaptation gap that is rooted in the interaction between caste-based agrarian structures and gender norms. Using a district-level panel from 1987 to 2012, I find that rising long-run temperatures are associated with declines in male agricultural employment in districts with high Scheduled Caste (SC) populations, communities shaped by centuries of land exclusion and concentrated in agricultural wage labour.

Keywords: Climate change; Adaptation; Gender; Employment; Caste (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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