BANGKOK, September 16, 2026: Extreme heat is emerging as a serious economic, health and climate resilience threat for millions of women working in Thailand’s informal economy, cutting earnings, raising household costs and forcing workers to adapt in ways that can create new risks, according to a new report from HERA.
The report, “Weathering Change: How Extreme Heat is Reshaping Women’s Lives in Thailand”, is based on workshops, listening sessions and focus groups with 299 women informal workers across eight provinces. HERA says the findings show that extreme heat is not an isolated health problem, but a crisis affecting women’s bodies, livelihoods, safety, family responsibilities and financial stability.
Thailand has more than 11 million women working in heat-exposed informal occupations, including street vending, motorcycle taxi services, domestic work and home-based production. Many work outdoors or in poorly ventilated spaces and are often primary earners for their households.
The report’s central message is that climate adaptation cannot be designed only through national temperature forecasts, infrastructure plans or broad resilience strategies. HERA argues that effective adaptation starts with listening to the people experiencing heat directly and building solutions around their lived realities.
Heat Is Already Cutting Incomes
The economic impacts documented by HERA are significant. Shellfish processors reported daily earnings falling by as much as 75%, from 400 baht to 100 baht, as hotter conditions accelerated food spoilage. Home-based weavers reported 50% productivity losses because work became difficult between 11am and 3pm. Motorcycle taxi drivers also saw their income cut by around half as passenger demand dropped during peak heat.
At the same time, household costs are rising. Electricity bills were reported to have tripled as families increased cooling, while water bills rose by 75% to 80%. Healthcare expenses added another burden, with treatment costs ranging from three to ten times a woman’s daily wage in some cases.
For low-income informal workers, this creates a compounding climate risk: women are earning less at precisely the time that heat is pushing up the cost of staying healthy and keeping households functioning.
This is an important distinction for climate policy. Extreme heat is often discussed as a health issue, but the findings show it is also a productivity, income and household resilience problem.
Health Impacts Extend Beyond Heat Exhaustion
Women participating in HERA’s workshops reported a broad range of acute and chronic health problems, including headaches, dizziness, fainting, heatstroke, nosebleeds and painful heat rashes. The report also records cases of miscarriage.
Mental health impacts were also common. Women described insomnia, anxiety, irritability and depression, particularly among those balancing paid employment with substantial caregiving responsibilities.
These findings illustrate how heat exposure can extend far beyond the working day. A woman working outdoors may return home to a poorly ventilated house, higher night-time temperatures and continued care responsibilities, leaving little opportunity for physical recovery.
That creates what the report describes as an “exhaustion trap”. Some workers move economic activity into the night to avoid dangerous daytime temperatures, only to find that higher overnight heat and unpaid domestic work leave them with little time to rest.
Adaptation Can Create New Risks
One of the more troubling findings is that adaptation itself can expose women to new vulnerabilities.
Women motorcycle taxi drivers reported greater exposure to harassment and sexual assault when shifting their working hours into the night to avoid daytime heat.
This demonstrates why climate adaptation cannot be treated as a purely technical exercise.
Changing working hours may reduce exposure to temperature, but it can increase safety risks. Staying indoors may offer respite, but poorly ventilated homes may remain dangerously hot. More air-conditioning can protect health, but higher energy bills can deepen financial stress.
The report therefore points to the need for gender-responsive and locally grounded adaptation, where health, income, safety, housing and care responsibilities are considered together.
Heat Literacy Is Part of Adaptation
The listening sessions themselves appear to have had an impact.
After participating, 70% of women reported a stronger understanding of extreme heat and its impacts, while 99% recognised extreme heat as a serious threat to their lives and livelihoods.
This suggests that heat literacy can be an important resilience tool.
Workers who understand heat stress can identify warning signs, adjust working patterns earlier and participate more effectively in the design of community responses. HERA says the women involved also showed a strong willingness to participate in collective, community-led solutions.
The organisation’s work in Thailand has involved more than 20 workshops and focus groups, with the aim of understanding the solutions women themselves believe would improve resilience.
From Insurance to Localised Heat Protection
The Thailand work builds on HERA’s wider Women’s Climate Shock Insurance and Livelihoods Initiative (WCSI).
In 2024, HERA partnered with Prudence Foundation to introduce the initiative in India, combining microinsurance and cash assistance with early-warning and heat-health messaging systems. The programme is now being adapted toward more localised, gender-responsive interventions in Thailand.
The emerging solutions extend beyond insurance alone.
HERA’s broader work in Thailand points towards a mix of income protection, workplace adaptation, community health responses and practical cooling measures. Women involved in the process have identified needs including early warnings, safer workplaces, accessible healthcare, practical cooling and financial protection.
The importance of this multi-layered approach is clear. Heat shocks can interrupt work immediately, but their effects also ripple into food security, debt, health spending and family care.
Informal Workers Are a Climate Adaptation Blind Spot
The report highlights a broader challenge for climate policy across Asia.
Informal workers are often among those most exposed to climate impacts, yet they can fall outside conventional labour protection, social insurance and employer-led heat adaptation systems.
They may not have access to paid sick leave, cooling facilities, fixed workplaces, occupational health programmes or income support when extreme temperatures force them to stop working.
For Thailand’s 11 million-plus women informal workers, climate resilience therefore depends not only on physical infrastructure, but also on financial tools, social protection, health systems and community-led adaptation.
This is particularly important because many of these women are also primary earners. A heat-related loss of income can quickly become a household-level shock affecting schooling, healthcare, food and debt repayment.
Extreme Heat Needs to Be Treated as an Economic Risk
The report adds to growing evidence that extreme heat should be treated as an economic risk, not merely as a weather event.
When workers lose half their productivity, when perishable goods spoil, when transport demand falls and when families spend far more on cooling and healthcare, the result is not just personal hardship. It is lost economic activity.
For governments and businesses, this creates a case for investing in adaptation earlier.
Cooling infrastructure, shaded workplaces, accessible healthcare, heat alerts, flexible work arrangements, financial protection and community-based support may carry upfront costs, but the alternative is worsening productivity losses and greater pressure on vulnerable households.
Listening as Climate Infrastructure
Perhaps the report’s most important contribution is methodological. HERA’s model begins with listening. Rather than assuming what workers need, the organisation uses workshops and focus groups to understand how heat changes the daily realities of women working across different sectors and regions. Those insights then inform the design of interventions.
For climate adaptation, that process can be as important as infrastructure itself. Extreme heat does not affect everyone in the same way. A motorcycle taxi driver, street vendor, domestic worker and home-based weaver experience different risks, and each requires different solutions.
Thailand’s experience suggests that a more effective heat resilience strategy will need to combine climate science with lived experience.
As temperatures rise, the question for policymakers will not simply be how hot cities and communities become. It will be whether workers have the financial, social and physical protection needed to continue earning safely.
For Thailand’s women informal workers, HERA’s findings suggest that threshold has already been crossed: extreme heat is no longer a future climate risk. It is reshaping work, income, health and everyday life now.