Extreme Heat Is Costing Workers Days of Pay and Threatening Household Livelihoods
A new cross-country analysis urges governments to link heat adaptation with social protection to prevent medical bills and lost wages from pushing families into poverty.
Overview
- The adelphi global report released July 10, 2026 finds that workers in agriculture and construction in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nigeria already lose about 20 working days a year to heat stress, reducing pay for millions of daily-wage and informal workers.
- For India the study estimates a $194 billion hit to income in 2024, roughly 5 percent of GDP, and projects sector losses in agriculture and construction that equal about 22.5 working days per year by 2030.
- The report frames a ‘double burden’ where extreme heat cuts earnings by forcing slower work or time off and raises out-of-pocket medical costs for heat-related illness, a pressure made worse by high informal employment and low health coverage.
- Authors call for adaptation measures tied directly to social protection, including compensation for lost work, state-backed insurance, stronger labour protections for heat risks and beefed-up public health services.
- Spanning eight countries, the analysis links the rising frequency and intensity of extreme heat to fossil-fuel-driven climate change and warns that unchecked trends will deepen poverty, slow recovery from shocks and widen inequality.