Women in Australia are contending with The Climate Load, in addition to the many other pressures they’re facing including on paid and unpaid work, sexual harassment and discrimination.
The Climate Load shares similarities with The Mental Load – an already well-documented and researched term that refers to the “thinking” women take on around household labour and care work. This thinking covers the scheduling, planning and organising around such tasks, but also includes the stress and worry associated with it.
And just like The Mental Load, The Climate Load women carry is ever-enduring. It crosses from work to leisure and to sleep.
Today, we’re releasing a major report into The Climate Load, and how it’s impacting women in Australia. You can read the report here, and share your thoughts on the final recommendations to be released in April 2023.
Based on numerous conversations, a survey of women, and a review of the existing research, we see The Climate Load as involving the anxiety and worry that women feel about climate change, including concerns about how it will impact their financial security, safety, and those they love.
But it’s much more than the worry for Australian women.
The Climate Load also involves the added direct impacts women face from climate change.
The risks to physical and mental health as a result of heatwaves, bushfire smoke and disruptions to health services.
The added risk of family and domestic violence in the years following a natural disaster, with evidence showing such violence has spiked in communities following bushfires and floods.
The added risk to women taking on further unpaid work and therefore having their current and future earnings impacted.
The Climate Load also includes the impacts of climate change on workers in the care sector, like those in healthcare and early childhood education, which are already heavily dominated by women and serve as the “front line” in communities impacted by disasters.
And it includes the added unpaid work women take on in responding to the lack of action on climate change. This work occurs in activism, politically and across the community and business. Women take this load despite being far from fairly represented at decision-making tables that can issue policy and changes to help with adaption and mitigation measures.
Our research finds that women take on further unpaid work in preparing for and responding to natural disasters, especially on managing the additional caring responsibilities that come both during the stages of the emergency and in the long recoveries that follow. Women become a frontline of mental support, particularly for families and children traumatised by disaster, such as in childcare centres, where we found women are supporting children in coping with daily stress and trauma from what they experienced, as their families aim to rebuild their lives.
This additional paid and unpaid care work goes further. If care infrastructure is destroyed by natural disasters, women are picking up the immediate tasks in rebuilding and re-coordination to ensure options are available to the community. And where this care infrastructure can’t be immediately adapted for the relief effort, women can find their paid work and employment is further disrupted as they take on the caring responsibilities themselves.
And then also how the load is even heavier for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander women, as well as for migrant and refugee women, for women with a disability, for single mothers, women who are already contending with poverty, the list goes on.
Meanwhile, The Climate Load is directly contributing to the work at home – and building on the existing mental load so many women already feel burdened by. Our February 2023 survey found that:
- 82% are “very worried about climate change”
- 75% believe they have already been personally impacted by extreme weather events in Australia caused by climate change
- 64% say their mental health has been impacted
- 24% say their ability to afford a house has been impacted
- 27% anticipate having difficulties paying energy bills over the next three months
- 23% of women are solely responsible for the added load of reducing emissions at home, while 38 per cent take the lead in the household on this.
We also heard numerous responses from women expressing significant concern around areas like housing, cost of living, domestic and family violence, and health. It was the comments regarding the additional “loads” of all of this that really stood out, and ultimately inspired the name of this report.
As one respondent noted: “Climate change is already creating chaos in our society. And women bear a disproportionate burden of labour when systems in the family unit or workplace are in chaos. Put simply, more chaos = more work for women.
In short, The Climate Load on women in Australia includes:
- Mental anxiety and worry about climate change and there impacts on the future security and family members
- Additional domestic and family violence risks, given reports of this spiking following bushfire and flood crises in Australia
- Health risks associated with disruptions to women’s health and reproductive services, as well as women facing higher heatwave-related mortality risks, documented health risks to pregnant women associated with bushfire smoke and heat
- Further difficulties for women to seek immediate relief and access public cool spaces and emergency centres, due to caring responsibilities, disability, or cultural sensitivities or barriers that may impede on them being able to leave the home
- Housing affordability challenges and homelessness risks, due to rising insurance premiums, houses being destroyed by disasters and climate change exacerbating existing shortages in social housing
- Further unpaid care and work responsibilities associated with disruptions to care infrastructures, which may impinge on economic opportunity and paid workforce participation
- Further burnout and workloads on already overworked and underpaid female-dominated sectors including childcare, aged care, disability care, social services and healthcare.
But there are opportunities in the green transition ahead.
Australia has the potential to be a renewable energy superpower, as long as it makes the deliberate decision to tap into the full potential of the workforce – especially advancing opportunities for women in critical skills shortage areas like engineering and construction. We’re also seeing women driving forward in the climate tech space, where female founders are represented in far greater numbers than across the general startup sector.
There is a clear opportunity for Australia to make the most of the green transition by leveraging the participation and potential of the full population.
We launched The Climate Load at the National Press Club this week, highlighting the impact of climate change on women on girls in Australia, while also presenting case studies from women across the Pacific to note the further challenges these women face and the need to highlight Australia’s responsibilities.
From here, we plan to run continuing conversations that document The Climate Load. We’ll be sharing stories over the coming weeks, and beyond. And we intend on updating this research, repeating it every year if not every quarter, and ramping up how we cover the gendered nature of the climate crisis.
But the we are and will share stories are not all about the crisis. They also cover the hope and optimism and the sheer talent of so many women leaders and innovators in this space.
We will be doing more to cover the women at the forefront of the action and ensure the renewable energy transition is tapping into the full potential of women.
The climate crisis is here. It’s time to ensure women at all levels of decision-making, and to tell the many, many stories of women contending with the climate crisis and the climate load.
On Women’s Agenda, we believe every story is a climate story.
We believe any discussion on gender equity and women’s economic participation, safety and security, must consider the impacts of climate change.
See the full report here.