higher average temperature
Warming shifts the curve to the right → more hot days
Source: ISET-International, adapted from IPCC TAR Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
This dashboard presents data and insights from the research study “Hot Cities Make Hard Work Harder: Strengthening Health and Livelihood Resilience for Informal Workers in South and Southeast Asian cities” conducted in five cities - Dhaka (Bangladesh), Delhi (India), Jakarta (Indonesia), Kathmandu (Nepal) and Quezon city (The Philippines).
Shares the lived experience of informal workers, highlighting the increased precarity in their lives and livelihoods due to increasing heat.
Identifies short-term entry points from worker experiences to make global heat discourses more inclusive.
Addresses heat through tangible and sustainable ways that support the informal workers their economies depend on.
The data used in this dashboard is from the insights and experiences of informal workers and internal migrants across five cities: Dhaka, Bangladesh; Delhi, India; Jakarta and Greater Jakarta area, Indonesia; Kathmandu, Nepal; and Quezon City, Philippines. Informal employment dominates the labour market in these cities, with internal migrants comprising a significant portion of the workforce. Although some are informally employed within the formal sector, the majority work in the informal economy.
These cities and countries were selected based on the following parameters -
Qualitative Research Methods
The respondents were selected based on the following sampling criteria:
Dhaka
Delhi NCR
Jakarta
Kathmandu
Quezon City
Quantitative Research Methods
The criteria used for selecting the sample includes:
It is important to note that while the dataset only captures migrant workers, our research expands the scope of this work by explicitly including informal workers as the key category to widen the scope of understanding impacts across different worker groups.
2015-2024
The ten warmest years on record globally.
Future Projection
Mid-range emissions scenarios project an additional 0.3C of warming by 2040
Heat is rising due to climate change. A 1.3 °C increase may be barely noticeable for most people, yet on a global scale this small shift is significant, as even modest increases in the global average temperature can dramatically raise the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme heat events. This shift in the average temperature moves the entire distribution of temperatures to the right, making weather that is considered “too hot,” “dangerously hot,” and even never-before-experienced heat much more common, amplified by an observed increase in temperature variability.
Night-time temperatures are rising faster than daytime temperatures, reducing the body’s ability to recover from heat. In cities, these changes are intensified by the Urban Heat Island effect, where heat-absorbing surfaces, limited vegetation, and heat from vehicles and buildings raise both day and night temperatures, making extreme heat far more dangerous in unplanned, poorly serviced neighbourhoods, especially in South and Southeast Asian cities.
Current Climate
Source: ISET-International, adapted from IPCC TAR Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
higher average temperature
Warming shifts the curve to the right → more hot days
Source: ISET-International, adapted from IPCC TAR Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
higher temperature and more extremes
Rising variability widens the curve → more extremes
Combined, this produces much more frequent and severe heat, including never-before-seen temperatures
Source: ISET-International, adapted from IPCC TAR Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
What is the age of the surveyed respondents?
Most of the respondents surveyed fall in the age group of 25-59 years who are primarily engaged in the informal sector with a low proportion of individuals from other age groups also being involved, reflecting how individuals regardless of their age group continue to enter the informal sector. This further highlights how the informal sector is acting as a key livelihood source, providing them income and employment opportunities.
What is the gender of the surveyed respondents?
Our data shows a near equal mix of both the genders being engaged. Cities might enable many women to take up employment opportunities which otherwise would not have been possible at source locations. Additionally, living costs in cities might be a driving force for women also to take up jobs to make ends meet.
Why are people migrating?
Given the vulnerable conditions workers face, migration often remains the only coping mechanism. Across the five countries, lack of job opportunities, low wages,and livelihoods no longer being sustainable at their source location, are amongst the primary reasons that drive workers to migrate not by choice but out of necessity.
Why are migrants choosing certain destination locations?
Migration locations are strategically chosen by workers largely based on the employment opportunities and income, to sustain their livelihoods and support their families. For many, education opportunities and better healthcare services are also a significant driver for influencing their decision on choosing the destination location. Interestingly for a small percentage marriage purposes and proximity to their village also shape choices for selecting the destination.
Who are they migrating with?
A significant proportion of workers migrate with their family members, reflecting emotional support needed in times of migration and due to social responsibilities, while some undertake the journey alone without any support system.
What duration are migrants moving for?
Migration tends to be a permanent move to the destination location for a large majority of workers due to a stable urban labour market and diversified job opportunities that allow migrants to settle and support families. A small proportion of workers also migrate temporarily for seasonal or short‑term work and to supplement income before returning to their source location, reflecting circular mobility around employment, agricultural cycles, and household strategies is more common.
How many migrants are impacted negatively due to extreme weather events?
Extreme weather events have significant impacts on individuals both at source and destination locations. With the majority (41%) being affected by it at both locations, a greater proportion of respondents, compared to the destination, highlighted being affected by the weather events at the source location.
This reflects how migration slightly provides exposure relief to a few by shifting from source to destination locations, while many are still left to face the brunt of extreme conditions.
For informal workers in these cities, exposure to extreme heat is not a momentary event but a constant, cyclical reality. The danger is present where they live, where they work, and everywhere in between, with specific groups like migrants and new arrivals often facing the most severe conditions.
Extreme weather events workers face in cities
Cities experience many different weather events. However, heat stands out as one of the major extreme weather events affecting people negatively.
Heat's impact on informal workers in urban cities is becoming more and more visible with most of them above the global threshold levels. Considering that most of these workers have been in these cities for a long time, a large proportion talked about how heat had increased over the past few years.
During the dry season, it’s gotten worse now. Because before, you could go out even when it’s hot. Sometimes we close the store when it’s too hot. Because we really can’t handle being exposed to the heat. It’s too hot.
Maria, street vendor, Philippines
Impacts on livelihoods
Wage loss and wage cuts in cities are predominantly faced by migrant workers in informal sectors as a result of extreme weather events. Job loss for them was comparatively lower since the probability of work completely stopping was lesser
Either it gets very hot or very cold. In such conditions, one can’t really work. So, in order to complete the assignment, we must increase our work hours. On the one hand, we are required to increase our work hours, and on the other hand, we remain sick due to these weather changes.
Sunita, construction worker, Kathmandu
Beyond the workplace, impacts stretch to the household level, with many highlighting food insecurity and health issues. Reduced income and constrained movement often affect households with serious long-term issues, crippling their ability to bear these extreme conditions. Combined with income losses, household-level impacts faced by workers due to extreme weather conditions further compound their existing vulnerabilities.
The direct impacts of heat at the household level are multi-layered and affect workers immensely as a result of the precarity that they already live in.
The direct impacts of heat at the household level are multi-layered and affect workers immensely as a result of the precarity that they already live in.
Migrant families often live in densely built informal settlements with thin, heat-trapping roofs, poor ventilation, limited green spaces, and unreliable services. Rooms remain hot into the night, pushing families outdoors, increasing exposure to heat and vector-borne diseases, and disproportionately affecting children and the elderly, with caregiving burdens falling on women.
Workers reported frequent fevers, gastric distress, respiratory issues, sleep loss, anxiety, elevated blood pressure, and higher risk of dengue. Persistent high nighttime temperatures and unreliable electricity prevent recovery, creating a “recovery deficit.”
Heat-related illness leads to lost wages, increases medical costs, and reduces productivity, while limited access to healthcare and migrant-status hurdles often force workers to delay treatment or return to their source locations for care.
Heat and climate-related health risks reduce workers’ availability and productivity, leading to adverse economic consequences for both workers and employers globally. Projections suggest between 2025-2050, losses of $570B in worker-availability in the construction sector alone.
A significant proportion of individuals reported receiving no assistance during extreme weather events, despite facing heightened risks. However, in some cities, we see a higher proportion of workers receiving some form of support from governments and civil society organisations.
In spite of the grave and increasing challenges that workers and internal migrants face due to heat, external support is limited. Most of the workers we spoke with for this study, indicated they had limited access to emergency protections or assistance during these extreme weather events. Limited or no assistance during extreme heat events often leads to workers or internal migrants coping on their own, straining their already overburdened capacity.
Support from family or friends and using savings are the majorly adopted coping mechanisms in destination cities. Some individuals also resort to additional burden on themselves during these periods by taking up more work or resorting to maladaptive coping strategies such as loans from informal moneylenders highlighting makeshift and risky coping mechanisms.
Informal workers often rely on short-term, simple, and reactive measures to cope with heat, but these come at a monetary cost.
Short-Term Coping Mechanisms
When it’s hot… you just have to use an electric fan, because… it’s really hard to work without it.
Regarding the heat… Well, it’s something we have to live with. We just have to find ways to deal with it.”
Sarah, street vendor, Quezon city
These recommendations address heat holistically in ways that serve the most vulnerable people. This is an area for innovation, learning and further identifying important entry points for governments, civil society, non-profits, employers, and funders to engage on, as they grapple with how to address and build resilience to extreme heat.
Governments: Recognise heat as a hazard to enable funding, disaster declarations, resource coordination, and data collection; increase knowledge of heat impacts; share policies and solutions across sectors; build capacity and technical skills for long-term heat adaptation.
Civil Society & Communities: Raise awareness of heat impacts, especially for informal workers; provide training, dialogue spaces, and empower community-based groups to address current and future challenges.
Employers: Understand heat impacts on health and productivity; implement heat policies and worker protections; take concrete actions to reduce risks to employees and maintain business continuity.
Ensure heat plans, policies, and strategies are community-centred and inclusive of the most exposed populations, particularly informal workers, by developing culturally-appropriate solutions that address their specific challenges and reduce vulnerabilities.
Local Governments: Facilitate inclusion of communities, especially vulnerable groups, in decision-making, implementation, and monitoring of heat action, improving risk tracking, joint action, and sustainability.
Civil Society: Represent hard-to-reach groups, such as informal workers and internal migrants, to ensure their needs are included.
Extend existing social protection mechanisms to automatically trigger during extreme heat, ensuring easy access to income support, food relief, and health services for vulnerable populations.
Governments: Identify vulnerable populations’ needs during extreme heat and map existing social protection mechanisms to find gaps; develop new policies where needed, using global best practices; establish heat thresholds to trigger protections; learn from and scale parametric heat insurance pilots to expand coverage for workers.
Civil Society & Local Governments: Educate the public about available social protection mechanisms and when they can be accessed during heat events.
Employers: Be aware of relevant social security schemes for informal workers and communicate available support options as needs arise.
Ensure heat plans, policies, and strategies are cross-sectoral and multi-scalar, fostering collaboration across departments and levels of government to improve awareness, enforceability, monitoring, and effectiveness in addressing the wide-ranging impacts of heat.
Government: Collaborate across departments and ministries to mainstream heat into sectoral policies, leverage convening power for cross-sectoral and cross-level coordination, and consider dedicated bodies or positions to support integrated heat planning and policy development.
Officially recognise informal workers, including internal migrants, as a vulnerable group eligible for social protection, addressing their compounded vulnerabilities from climate change, social and cultural barriers, financial insecurity, and lack of political representation.
Governments: Officially recognise informal workers as eligible for social protection; include worker categories and sectors in national censuses to inform needs and resource allocation.
Civil Society & Local Governments: Identify informal workers, raise awareness of available social protection mechanisms, and improve last-mile delivery during extreme heat events, accounting for their transience and invisibility.
Include mandatory worker protection provisions in heat policies, ensuring wage protection and safe working conditions so workers in heat-exposed industries are not forced to work under extreme, harmful conditions.
Governments: Integrate wage-loss mitigation and health protections into heat plans using measures like parametric insurance, anticipatory relief, or funding mechanisms; provide guidance and incentives to employers; and ensure accountability for implementation.
Employers: Support workers in following provisions outlined in heat action plans, including hydration, cooling, and alternative work schedules.
Complement short-term heat planning with long-term strategies that mitigate heat risks and enable adaptation in workplaces and households, based on current and projected climate impacts.
Governments: Develop informed, responsive heat action plans with both short- and long-term strategies.
Non-profits, Employers, and Experts: Provide capacity building and technical assistance to support governments in developing policies and plans that integrate long-term heat adaptation priorities.
Research Institutions: Conduct locally-grounded studies on heat risk and vulnerability, and identify long-term adaptation options to inform government planning.
Invest in and conduct research to understand differential heat risks and vulnerabilities among informal workers, and assess the impact and effectiveness of pilot solutions to enable scaling and sustainable implementation.
Governments: Take up and scale proven solutions to reach larger populations.
Non-profits & Civil Society: Pilot solutions (sometimes with the private sector) and generate evidence on successes and failures for wider learning.
Philanthropies & Funders: Invest in research on heat impacts on vulnerable communities and pilot practical, adaptive solutions to protect workers.
