COOLING FOR ALL AND GENDER

The document analyzes how gender norms, poverty, and social structures exacerbate the vulnerabilities of women and girls to heat stress and limit their access to cooling services. It highlights specific risks in healthcare, domestic labor, and agriculture, while calling for sex-disaggregated data and gender-transformative policies to achieve universal sustainable cooling.

• Over 1 billion people in 54 high-impact countries lack access to cooling services that support health and livelihoods, while another 2.2 billion people in lower-middle income settings are at risk of using inefficient cooling devices.
• Women face distinct physiological and lived vulnerabilities to heat; pregnant women have a lower tolerance for heat stress, which increases the risk of heat exhaustion and potential harm to the fetus.
• Gender-based social structures and cultural norms increase women's risk during extreme heat events, such as the 2010 Ahmedabad heatwave, where women in poor settings suffered disproportionately due to outdoor cooking and lack of home facilities.
• Lack of reliable electricity in rural health facilities in Ghana (27% access) and Uganda (29% access) creates risks for childbearing women and hinders the delivery of temperature-sensitive vaccines, such as the HPV vaccine which requires storage between 2-8°C.
• Women are disproportionately affected by energy poverty and heat stress in the home, as they perform a majority of indoor chores; UNICEF estimates girls spend 160 million more hours daily on household chores than boys.
• In the agricultural sector, women face significant barriers to cooling technology due to lack of formal land ownership and limited access to finance, particularly in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
• Women in the informal economy, including domestic workers in Brazil and India, often work in unregulated environments without mandated ventilation or cooling, exposing them to extreme heat and health hazards.
• The garment industry, which employs 80% women and is concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, often features poorly ventilated factories that cause female workers to suffer from headaches, respiratory problems, and fainting.
• There are opportunities for women to lead in the cooling workforce, with China showing high female registration in national refrigeration associations (just under 20%) and Indonesia seeing increased female roles in the RAC industry.
• Current national cooling policies, such as India's National Cooling Action Plan, often fail to directly address gender in terms of data, supporting programmes, or expected outcomes.

APA

Girardeau, H., Aharonian, A., Zoghbi, E., Uwamaliya, A., Mehic, S., Dean, B., Hartley, B., Kent, S., & Otarra, M. (2021). COOLING FOR ALL AND GENDER. Sustainable Energy for All. https://www.seforall.org/system/files/2021-03/Gender-Cooling-SEforALL.pdf

Chicago

Girardeau, Hannah, Annette Aharonian, Eduarda Zoghbi, Alice Uwamaliya, Sejla Mehic, Brian Dean, Ben Hartley, Stephen Kent, and Meriam Otarra. COOLING FOR ALL AND GENDER. Sustainable Energy for All, 2021. https://www.seforall.org/system/files/2021-03/Gender-Cooling-SEforALL.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{girardeau2021cooling, author = {Girardeau, Hannah and Aharonian, Annette and Zoghbi, Eduarda and Uwamaliya, Alice and Mehic, Sejla and Dean, Brian and Hartley, Ben and Kent, Stephen and Otarra, Meriam}, title = {{COOLING FOR ALL AND GENDER}}, institution = {Sustainable Energy for All}, year = {2021}, month = mar, url = {https://www.seforall.org/system/files/2021-03/Gender-Cooling-SEforALL.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }