Research
Job Market Paper
Stuck in the Fields: How Rising Temperatures Deepen Gender Inequality in Rural India
Abstract: The adverse effects of climate change on agriculture can be particularly detrimental to many landless female laborers who depend on it for their livelihoods. This study examines the long-run effects of temperature rises on the gendered sectoral reallocation of labor in rural areas of India. Using a district-level panel dataset spanning 30 years (1987–2018), I show that increasing long-term temperatures are associated with men shifting to non-agricultural sectors, while women remain trapped in agriculture and work at lower wages. These effects are most pronounced in districts with a high share of landless female laborers (belonging to the backward Scheduled Caste community) at baseline, where a 1 degree C increase in long-term average temperatures is associated with a 34% rise in the female-to-male employment ratio in agriculture. Supporting empirical evidence suggests declines in agricultural wages and strong substitution effects among men within households, but not among women. Rising temperatures are also linked to declining female rural-urban migration, which further restricts women’s exit from agriculture. Additional evidence from qualitative fieldwork highlights that restrictive gender and social norms related to job suitability and mobility impose high costs of transition on women and limit their sectoral reallocation. Overall, the findings highlight how climate change is interacting with existing regressive social institutions and amplifying gender inequalities in developing countries.
Presented at: EEA Congress 2025, DuDe PhD Workshop (Poster), German Development Economics Conference 2025, WIDER Development Conference 2025 (Poster), 4th Workshop on Gender and Economics, 4th Development Economists Meet Workshop, MACIMIDE Conference 2024
Working Papers
(with Bruno Martorano and Melissa Siegel)
Reject & Resubmit at The World Bank Economic Review
Abstract: The impacts of climate change can be particularly adverse for women in developing countries, and more so due to the presence of regressive gendered customs and norms in these countries. In this study, we provide novel evidence on how the custom of dowry shapes the long-term impacts of climate change on women in rural India. We examine how increasing temperatures due to climate change are influencing marriage-related female rural-rural and rural-urban migration in India. We find that a 0.1 degree C increase in long-term temperatures is associated with a 2.7% decline in rural-urban and a 1.4% decline in rural-rural female migration. The declining effects are concentrated in districts with a high prevalence of the dowry custom. In these regions, supporting evidence points to reductions in agricultural yields and declining rural incomes, which limit households’ ability to finance dowry payments required to secure grooms, particularly from urban areas. Consistent with this mechanism, we also find that rising temperatures are associated with declining female marriage rates in high dowry-prevalent regions.
Presented at: 18th AFD-World Bank Migration and Development Conference, 23rd Nordic Conference in Development Economics, Applied Young Economists Webinar, American Economic Association Meeting 2025, PSE-CEPR Policy Forum 2024, IMISCOE Spring Conference 2024, RES Annual Conference 2024, 4th Workshop on Women in the Economy, ISI Delhi, Inequality and the Environment Symposium 2024, UNU-MERIT Internal Conference 2023, MACIMIDE Conference 2023
Works in Progress
Climate Change and Inequality in India- with David Castells-Quintana and Nicolai Suppa (Commissioned by UNU-WIDER )
Access to Livelihoods and Climate Change Adaptation among Refugees and IDPs- with Sonja Fransen (Funded by Refugees International )
Hot Days, Hard Choices:Temperature Shocks and Time Use in India- with Kunal Sen and Rahul Lahoti
Caste versus Geography in Northern India
Rural Electrification and Regional Inequality in India
Publications
Mukherjee, M. and Fransen, S. (2024). Exploring migration decision-making and agricultural adaptation in the context of climate change: A systematic review. World Development. Available here.
Reports
Linking Tourism, Local Environment and Waste Generation in Indian Himalayan States : Case-study of Uttarakhand (with Amrita Goldar and Diya Dasgupta)
Final Report, 2020, National Mission on Himalayan Studies (NMHS), Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India.