Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

India's climate crisis disproportionately burdens rural women, increasing labor and health risks. Structural inequality impedes adaptation. True resilience requires securing women's agency, integrating their Traditional Knowledge in farming, and ensuring equitable leadership in climate policy.

Paper long abstract

The climate crisis poses a profound, differential threat in developing countries like India, amplifying existing socio-economic disparities. Its impacts are deeply gendered as women are closely tied to natural resources for livelihoods and household sustenance. Climate hazards, specifically chronic water scarcity, droughts, and intensifying heatwaves, directly translate into an increased burden for women, compelling them to undertake longer, more frequent trips for water and to work extended hours in agriculture, leading to acute time poverty. Despite facing disproportionate burdens due to water scarcity, crop failure, and climate-induced displacement, these women play a key role as agents of adaptation and resistance.

Indigenous women function as custodians of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, leveraging practices like seed preservation, crop diversification, and regenerative agriculture to build community food sovereignty and localized climate insurance against shocks. Their adaptation roles vis-à-vis climate change are well recognized. However, there are fundamental barriers to women’s adaptive capacity. Critical gender inequalities in statutory and customary land tenure security, which restrict rights to access, manage, and inherit land, prevent women from accessing vital agricultural information, credit, and decision-making platforms necessary for effective climate adaptation. Policy responses often overlook these socio-legal dimensions, restricting their engagement in the climate restoration programmes.

In light of the above, the present paper is an attempt to highlight the survival role of women in the face of climate change. Using narrative as a method of data collection, the paper aims to present how women play a critical role in ensuring climate resilience in certain parts of India.