Global warming is heating up gender differences

Why climate change affects women more than men in Georgia and around the globe

Around the world, women still do not have the same rights as men. They face inequalities, lower incomes, poverty and less access to education. They are more vulnerable when conflicts occur and often more dependent on natural resources while having less opportunities to make their voices heard. The list could go on. A list that makes women more vulnerable to climate change than men.

Climate change itself is not sexist. However, its consequences affect especially those who are already most vulnerable in our society. Old people and children, people with disabilities, women. Global warming does not invent new inequalities, it increases the societal differences that have existed for centuries and millennia. When looking at men and women, these are primarily gender-differentiated relative powers, roles and responsibilities on household and community level.

This is easiest explained with some examples. Women have a significantly higher chance to die in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Why? Because they have less access to resources and information. Young girls are the first to be taken out of school when education becomes too expensive. This also means that women have a much higher chance of living in poverty. If you are rich you can mitigate the outcomes of climate change, you can sit in an airconditioned room and work from home. If you cannot afford that and if you work in agriculture, where women make up a large percentage of the labour force, higher temperatures and extreme weather will not only make your job harder, it will also destroy the crops on which your income is dependent. Additionally, higher temperatures can have a health impact on women, especially during pregnancy and menstruation.

Let’s have a closer look at the situation in Georgia.

For women across Georgia, global warming is a daily, lived reality in which the traditional weather calendar has been replaced by unpredictable and extreme weather patterns affecting physical and mental health. 

These extreme shifts are dangerous, according to a study by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD). In urban centres like Tbilisi, the “heat island” effect traps soaring temperatures, with 60.8% of urban women reporting health issues during heatwaves. And beyond the physical strain, there is also a lasting psychological weight. One woman from Telavi recalled the trauma of a severe flood where she had to hide her children in a wardrobe to save them. This terrifying memory causes her son to fear the wind to this day. 

If you drive through rural Georgia, you will not see massive, industrial mega farms dominating the landscape. What you will see are women in their yards and small plots, keeping the local food system alive. With men increasingly leaving the villages to find jobs in the cities, the heavy lifting of rural life has been left entirely to the women left behind. Nearly 60% of self-employed women in Georgia work in small-scale farming. This shift is so drastic that researchers call it the “feminisation of responsibilities”. As one woman from Chiatura bluntly put it “The village is automatically looked after by women from start to finish.”     

When summer droughts hit rural Georgia, local wells simply dry up. But families still need to drink, cook and wash. Therefore, somebody must go find water, and that job almost always falls to women. Women often have to walk miles down dirt roads carrying heavy plastic containers. Studies indicate that over 35% of rural women are responsible for fetching water, compared to just 12% in the cities. 

Climate change in Georgia is a women’s issue. If we want to build communities that can survive and thrive in unpredictable weather, we cannot just focus on nature, we also have to focus on people. This means fixing rural roads, improving water systems and listening to the women who are holding these communities together. When we empower women with the support they need, they will not just survive the climate crisis, but they will proudly lead their communities through it. 

Climate change will increase social, economic and political tensions around the world. When armed conflicts occur women are especially at risk, facing besides others sexual violence, child marriage and human trafficking. Most people displaced by climate change are women, but their voices are often overheard. The UN Lima work programme on gender includes gender based differences of climate change. It is a start, but it is crucial to continue working, to make voices heard and knowledge shared. So that our planet does not become even warmer, but a safer place for everyone.