Climate change, gender and traditional livelihoods: Some reflections from India

Abstract

Climate Change has a distinct gender dimension as women and men are impacted disproportionately by it. Poor rural women are more vulnerable to the adversities of climate change due to their gender-differentiated, subordinate position that hinders their access to sufficient material resources and capacity to cope or adapt. Women in India are mostly engaged in traditional livelihoods like agriculture, fishery, sericulture, cotton, and tea plantations that are dependent on climate-sensitive resources. With global warming and escalated environmental degradations, critical ecological resources like water and forest are diminishing rapidly thus exacerbating their daily battles for survival. Many such livelihoods are fast disappearing, resulting in declining household income, the collapse of social security, deterioration of health and education of women and girl child, making many rural women unemployed, dependent, and disempowered. This is also a huge cause of climate-induced migration from rural areas to urban spaces. Hence, it is crucial to understand and address this particular dimension of climatic variability. In this light, this chapter aims to discuss the increasing challenge to food security and rural women's disempowerment caused by climate change. It would further propose the ways that would be productive in scaling up sustainability in traditional livelihoods and society at large.