Conversations about women’s rights and equality often focus on representation, pay gaps and leadership. And they should. However, climate change is quietly influencing another dimension of gender equality.
We had a chat with Dr. Katie Kuschminder, Head of the Environment and Migration: Interactions and Choices division at UNU-EHS, and talked about how climate risks influence the way people move and why women’s experiences within those movements matter and should be heard.
Why is human mobility in the context of climate change an important lens for understanding gender equality today?
Gender has an influence on many parts of mobility, such as why people move, how they move, what happens to them during displacement and what their return looks like.
Climate impacts do not affect everyone equally. In displacement settings for example, overcrowding and stress can increase risks of violence against women and girls. At the same time, women often carry primary responsibility for children, food, water and other unpaid care tasks. So, if we do not look at mobility through a gender lens, we are ignoring how roughly half the population experiences climate impacts.
If policymakers want mobility responses to work for all women and girls, what practical change would make the biggest difference?
Policies should be gender-centred from the start, incorporating women’s voices into planning processes from the beginning. In practical terms that means protection measures should be designed in displacement settings such as refugee camps with gender segregated sanitation facilities and safe spaces for women, access to health services and psychosocial support should be ensured and unpaid care work should be recognized. It also means looking beyond immediate displacement and considering what happens when women return home.
Can you give a concrete example of how climate and gender can intersect in mobility?
The story of a woman from the Philippines literally illustrates this intersection powerfully.
In the Philippines, many women migrate overseas for domestic work, mostly to the Middle East. These movements are usually classified as labour migration and are not considered climate-related. I was involved in a project which aimed to understand how reintegration is governed and how reintegration governance influences returnees’ experiences. Through this project, we learned how climate risk set a chain of events in motion for Linda, a single mother living in a northern community in the Philippines exposed to frequent typhoons.
One night, a powerful storm hit. Linda’s house had an unfinished roof. As floodwaters rose inside, she gathered her children and her mother and climbed to the upper level. They sheltered under a tarp in the darkness while wind and rain tore through what remained of their home.
Sitting there, Linda realized she could not afford to make the house safe against future storms. That was the turning point. Climate risk became the trigger for her migration.
She left her children in her mother’s care and travelled abroad to work as a domestic worker. In the Philippines, women who migrate are often described as heroes for supporting their families. Yet Linda’s experience was marked by abuse. She was underfed. Eventually, her employer dismissed her and Linda returned home. But there was no happy ending waiting for her there.
Her family was relieved to see her, yet the house remained unfinished. The threat of the next typhoon kept looming while she struggled with trauma from her experience. Although Linda received assistance to file a claim for unpaid wages, life did not become easier for her and her family.
She is not labelled a climate migrant, but is instead categorized as a domestic worker who migrated because of poverty. But climate risk was central to her decision. Linda’s story reveals a policy blind spot that when climate drivers are indirect, women’s mobility journeys can fall outside climate frameworks altogether.
What risks do we face if gender is ignored in climate mobility governance?
We risk designing policies that do not work for all, because they are not inclusive enough through a gender lens. Ignoring gender means overlooking specific protection needs, unequal care burdens and different exposure to harm. It also means failing to recognize how climate change can influence decisions that appear purely economic on paper. When we miss those connections, we miss opportunities to respond effectively.
There are encouraging examples of good practice that give hope for the future. Across regions, initiatives are emerging that support women as climate leaders for change and integrate gender considerations into climate programmes.
Women and girls should be heard, because their lived realities can help shape policies. That can begin with recognizing that a woman sheltering her children under a tarp during a typhoon is not just a future domestic worker, but someone navigating climate risk long before her journey is acknowledged as such by climate policy.
