How women-headed homes bear the hidden costs of the climate crisis
New research reveals a systemic and invisible injustice: women and low-income families across the Global South are paying the real costs of the climate crisis; not governments, and not the corporations most responsible for emissions.
Hivos and local partners in Brazil and Zambia conducted mixed-methods research with 236 households to better understand how climate change is reshaping daily life, budgets, emotional wellbeing, and survival strategies. The findings expose a profound economic and gendered reality: climate impacts are landing directly inside homes, and women are absorbing the costs through unpaid care, rising expenses, lost income and recurrent debt.
This is the “hidden climate bill”: an uncounted subsidy being paid from women’s bodies, time, and unpaid labor.
Below you can download the Strategic Brief. You can find the full version of the research, which also includes two country reports and a literature review, here.
