The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced that an El Niño event is expected to develop from mid-2026, impacting global temperature and rainfall patterns. El Niño is characterised by a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific. It typically occurs every two to seven years and lasts around nine to 12 months.
El Niño is not just a meteorological anomaly. It causes severe socio-economic dislocation for the most vulnerable. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasts a year of climate stress: extreme summer heat across most of central and northwest India between May-June 2026, followed by a “deficient” to “below normal” monsoon through September. October to December may bring increased rainfall during the northeast monsoon in southern India.
India’s climate-sensitive agricultural sector, comprising roughly less than 45% of the country’s workforce — including 80% of rural women – will be treacherously hit with snowballing socio-economic impacts. Moreover, the effects will be deeply gendered, as demonstrated in all climate events.
Despite being survivors, frontline crisis responders, and the lifeline of the rural economy, gender inequalities disproportionately reduce women’s climate adaptive capacities relative to men. As small scale subsistence farmers, small herders, natural resource managers, landless labourers, women lose much smaller asset bases – small crop yields, livestock, fodder, fishponds and catch, seeds, household supplies, microenterprise inventory, incomes, employment, and food and nutrition compared to men. This causes deeper multi-dimensional feminised poverty, and disproportionately erodes women’s resilience, compared to men.
In women-typical informal urban work sectors – weavers, garment producers, embroiderers, construction workers, head carriers, home-based workers, and trash recyclers – most women suffer financial losses as raw materials and finished goods, especially food, perish in the heat.
Data from the Indian Statistical Institute shows that during drought, women are 80% more likely to seek work and 7.1% less likely to be employed compared to men. Women’s workdays fall by 19% leading to a 38% drop in their real farm wage earnings compared to men. In contrast, men increase their non-farm workdays by 22.5% as they are more likely to migrate to urban centres for non-farm construction or service jobs during drought. Social norms, safety concerns, and caregiving responsibilities frequently trap women in distressed rural areas.
As men migrate, women become de facto heads of households, holding up the rural and household economy amid increased workloads and stress. This intensifies if remittances from migrant male relatives are not regular, or with lost labour hours due to inability to work in El Niño heat, or due to a lack of preparedness as female outdoor labourers have limited access to early warning systems given their low literacy levels and a lack of phone ownership.
El Niño-induced droughts deplete groundwater and run local ponds dry, disproportionately burdening women and girls. In water-stressed regions like Marathwada and Bundelkhand, women may spend up to 4 to 6 hours daily just fetching water. This unpaid care work prevents women from engaging in income-generating activities and forces young girls to drop out of school to assist at home.
Carrying heavy pots over long distances leads to chronic musculoskeletal issues. Also, water scarcity leads women to often prioritise the hygiene of male family members and children over their own, leading to increased rates of urinary tract infections (UTIs) and reproductive health issues.
In India’s 2023-2024 El Niño, studies in northern India showed that heat-related mortality rose 9.5% for women versus 7.5% for men once temperatures topped 40°C. While men face high absolute deaths from outdoor labour, women show higher relative vulnerability (mortality rate per exposure). This stems from biological factors and domestic heat traps – poorly ventilated, tin or asbestos roofed homes and kitchens or walking distances and queuing for water in extreme heat.
El Niño also triggers a malnutrition cycle as crop failures also drive food price spikes. The poor must reduce meal quality; women often skip meals entirely. Scarcity of leafy greens during dry spells worsens vitamin A and iron deficiencies, fueling India’s anemia epidemic, which according to NFHS-5 data (2019-2021) already affects about 57% of women of reproductive age. These biological tolls extend to children, with increased stunting and wasting. Ultimately, El Niño transforms agricultural loss into a systemic public health crisis for the most vulnerable.
Droughts foster water-borne diseases like cholera, while subsequent erratic rains create stagnant breeding grounds for vectors. Past El Niño cycles in south India saw a 20-30% rise in dengue and malaria. Beyond direct infection, women face increased unpaid care workloads. Further, extreme heat induces fetal strain, significantly raising risks of pre-term births, low birth weight, and dehydration-induced preeclampsia in pregnant women. Older women face high risks of heatstroke and heart failure due to thermoregulatory failure, muscle cramps, anemia, and pollution-linked respiratory ailments.
Agricultural census data 2015-2016 estimates that only 13.5% of Indian landholdings are women-owned. Women’s consequent lack of collateral excludes them from normal time and climate relief-and-recovery-related access to credit, insurance, and social safety nets. This forced reliance on exploitative moneylenders traps them in “climate debt”, often leading to harassment and a “dignity crisis”. Further, operational barriers — including male-centric relief distribution and poor information reach — severely diminish women’s access to recovery resources. Consequently, El Niño accentuates existing gender inequalities, leaving women without survival lifelines in environmental crises.
India’s heat and water strategies must boost safety and resilience for women and children through El Niño-specific gender mapping. Key interventions must include targeted anticipatory cash, nutritious food, and tailored early warnings through self-help groups. Essential infrastructure must provide bulk water transfers, public cooling centres, dignity kits, and violence-related mobile services.
Transitioning to gender-responsive resilience requires equitable land ownership and equal access to resources. We must build women’s capacity in green job skills and sustainable natural resource management, and elevate their participation and leadership in the green economy and in climate and integrated natural resource governance. This necessitates increasing the volume, reach, and sustainability of climate finance, while ensuring women’s representation in all financial decision-making mechanisms.
References:
Afridi, Farzana, Kanika Mahajan, and Rohini Somanathan. 2021. “Employment Guaranteed? Quotas for Women and Negative Shocks as Labor Supply Triggers.” New Delhi: Indian Statistical Institute.
Dr Jean D’Cunha, formerly with UN Women, is internationally acknowledged on gender equality and women’s rights, including on climate and migration. She currently advises the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) and the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC) on COP 30 implementation.
Views expressed are the author’s own.