Heat stress and gendered labour market outcomes in Ethiopia’s manufacturing sector
Climate change is not only an environmental or agricultural issue but also a growing challenge for industry and labour markets. This brief examines how rising heat stress affects firms and workers in Ethiopia’s manufacturing sector. Increasing temperatures and extreme heat events can reduce productivity, reshape workplace organisation, and influence hiring and wage decisions. The analysis highlights how these effects vary by gender and skill level, with important implications for job quality and equity.
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Heat-outcomes-and-gendered-labour-market-outcome-Ethiopia-ETH-24326.pdf
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- Heat stress reshapes employment within Ethiopian manufacturing firms rather than reducing labour demand uniformly across all workers.
- The study shows that higher heat exposure is associated with lower male employment and higher female employment, with the adjustment concentrated among production workers. Wage effects are more limited overall.
- Many firms are already adapting through ventilation, shading, cooling equipment, water breaks, and schedule adjustments, but adaptation remains partial and uneven.
- As heat stress can also be a source of labour reallocation within firms, recognising these internal distributional effects is essential for understanding how climate change may interact with industrialisation and employment transformation in low-income countries.