World Environment Day: Climate risk, non-migration, and the invisible struggles of women

Both women and men are exposed to climate risks in Bangladesh. However, research consistently shows that the impacts of climate change are gender biased. While climate-vulnerable populations struggle to cope with recurring crises, climate change literature identifies ‘migration’ as one of the key adaptation strategies. Faced with escalating risks and livelihood uncertainties due to climate stressors, people move to nearby towns and cities, and sometimes to major urban centers, in search of livelihood opportunities and security.

Migration data reveal intense gendered pattern- migration is a more common phenomena for men, however women hardly migrate. Women often remain, or asked to be remained, in their ancestral homes, guarding the household, caring for family members, looking after elderly parents and carry the emotional bondage of family with the land and community. No matter how severe the climate risks is, women are often unauthorized to step the orbit of socially prescribed roles they are assigned to perform.

The deeply rooted patriarchy prescribes women to hold families together and safeguard whatever assets remain and to manage this prescription women invest their time and presence under the conditions of persistent risk and uncertainty. In the process, women pay countless hours of unpaid labour from dawn to dusk. As a result, women not only bear the environmental impacts of climate change but also shoulder the immense social burden of care, responsibility, uncertainty, and survival. Consequently, women stay at geographical and social epicenter of climate vulnerability, while men often are the distant companions in the struggle, leaving women to fight the daily battles of climate risks. 

This article focuses on those non-migrant women who, willingly or unwillingly, remain in climate-vulnerable ancestral settlements. Despite being pushed to remain at the epicenter of the risk and vulnerability- the policies, programmes, investments, analytical framework, measurement systems hardly capture their lived experiences. These women group even not being  categorized as heavily vulnerable group in risk statistics or even in the national level dataset they rarely recognised as a discrete category.

In reality, non-migrant women remain invisible within dominant climate risk paradigms, despite the fact that their labor sustains the lives and livelihood of the heavily endangered households and communities. Their resilience as well as their intergenerational knowledge and know-how to address climate risks are completely overlooked, while solution continue to be designed at the macro level.

If we explore the scholarly literature, there are very few studies that could sought why climate-vulnerable women are unable to migrate, and why migration is always a male adaptation strategy. Likewise, there are relatively few research investigate why women continue to remain in highly vulnerable locations despite escalating climate risks. Rarely are they asked, either systematically or anecdotally, how they live their daily lives under constant acquaintance to floods, cyclones, riverbank erosion, salinity intrusion, or drought. How do they sustain their families and livelihoods under such conditions? How do they secure food, access water and fuel, healthcare, childcare, eldercare, reproductive health services, and manage the countless responsibilities associated with household survival?

What do these women imagine for their future? What are their aspirations, plans, fears, and uncertainties? How do they make decisions, adapt, and strive to create a livable future for themselves and their families despite persistent risk? These questions are not only important to understand the impacts of climate change, these answers are equally important to understand women’s life-making processes, their sense of agency, resilience, aspirations, and strategies for survival amidst adversity.

Is non-migration simply a matter of personal preference, or is it shaped by family decisions and broader social norms that position women at the center of risk while encouraging them to endure it? Who actually decides whether a woman migrates or stays? Does she possess the agency to make such decisions herself, or are these decisions largely made by male family members? To what extent are women’s voices considered in these processes?

Research on gender and climate change reveals that women’s migration and non-migration decisions are deeply influenced and constrained by patriarchal social structures. Gendered divisions of labour and responsibility often trap women in vulnerable locations. While men frequently perceive migration as a safer strategy for securing livelihoods, women remain behind to maintain households and manage everyday survival.

If we take a closer look at the lives of women and men in climate-vulnerable areas, a striking gender pattern emerged. Women possess innate connection with physical environment like land, tress, river, hills, homestead, local landscape, as well as their social and emotional worlds that surround them.  They even preserve  and value intergenerational memories, cultural believes and social relationships. On the contrary, men indeed connect spaces and relationships, however not that deep that women do and patriarchy guide them to keep a subtle isolation and wrap this with the sense of masculinity.

Conversations with women living in climate-vulnerable areas reveal that many are fully aware that the next flood, storm surge may destroy their homes. Yet they cannot imagine leaving. They feel responsible for the fruit trees in the yard, the family graves nearby, elderly relatives, livestock, and countless other aspects of family life - ironically, they legally own none of these assets. So, women’s attachment is not merely economic; it is emotional, social, cultural, and deeply rooted in intergenerational obligations and expectations.

These obligations are not natural or inherent but are produced and reproduced through patriarchal social relations that position women as custodians of care, family continuity, and social reproduction. In contrast, the same patriarchal structures often free men from many of these emotional and caregiving responsibilities, enabling greater mobility and making migration a more socially acceptable adaptation strategy for them. As a result, women remain disproportionately tied to places of risk, not simply because they choose to stay, but because gendered expectations and responsibilities constrain their ability to leave. It is an epic of uncertainty in which women occupy the central role.

Gendered behaviours, perceptions of risk, and adaptation practices are passed down from one generation to the next. Women learn repeatedly that they must endure, preserve, and protect. These social norms create a recurring cycle of risk and constraint, trapping women in place and reproducing vulnerability across generations.

This resilience of women often results in greater exposure to risk, heavier burdens of care, and stronger pressures to conform to socially constructed ideals of the “good woman.” In fulfilling these expectations, women frequently sacrifice their own health, particularly their sexual and reproductive health, nutrition, personal safety, and, at times, even their mobility and freedom. Meanwhile, the stress, trauma, and mental health consequences of prolonged climate exposure remain largely unaddressed.

Scholars working on gender and climate change increasingly place non-migration at the center of analysis. Their research demonstrates that aspirations (the desire to stay or migrate) and capabilities (the ability to act on those desires) are not simply matters of individual choice. Rather, they are shaped by gender norms, environmental pressures, access to resources, power relations, and intergenerational transfers of knowledge and values. Within this decision-making process, women are frequently positioned at the center of climate risk while lacking meaningful opportunities to influence the decisions that affect their lives.

Another important question concerns climate finance and adaptation investments. Among those who benefit from climate-related investments, what proportion are women? In many contexts, women do not own agricultural land and therefore have limited access to agricultural subsidies, credit schemes, and production support programs. Likewise, lacking assets or collateral, they often face barriers to accessing financial resources for businesses or alternative livelihoods. As a result, a substantial share of climate adaptation resources flows to men, even though women bear much of the burden of climate vulnerability.

Therefore, women’s experiences, realities, and priorities must be placed at the center of climate risk governance and climate-related investments. Climate planning, adaptation programs, and migration policies cannot focus solely on economic and environmental considerations. They must also address deeply embedded gender inequalities, unequal power relations, and the influence of intergenerational gender roles. Particular attention should be given to women who remain in climate-vulnerable areas, whose invisible labor, caregiving responsibilities, limited access to resources, and constrained decision-making power shape the everyday realities of adaptation.

Building women’s capabilities, strengthening their control over resources, enhancing their participation in decision-making, and expanding their adaptive capacities require more inclusive, equitable, and gender-responsive policies. Climate justice cannot be achieved unless the experiences, voices, and priorities of the women who carry the heaviest burdens of climate vulnerability are placed at the center of policy and investment decisions.

*Masuma Billah, PhD Fellow, Utrecht University, the Netherlands.