Opinion Do Women Really Make Up 80 Percent of All Climate Migrants
- Author: Undark Magazine
- Full Title: Opinion: Do Women Really Make Up 80 Percent of All Climate Migrants?
- Category: articles
- Document Tags: #planet
- URL: https://undark.org/2023/06/14/do-women-really-make-up-80-percent-of-all-climate-migrants/
Highlights
- An estimated 80 percent of climate migrants are women (View Highlight)
- To begin with, the 80 percent figure fails the basic smell test. As someone who has reported on climate change and migration across India, it is clear to me that men are typically the first to move in the face of environmental pressures, often in search of seasonal income or jobs in cities. Women and children tend to be the last to go, if they leave at all. (View Highlight)
- In fact, experts say there isn’t even a consensus on the definition of who counts as a climate migrant. When people migrate, it is often due to a combination of factors. Environment, when it comes into play, is just one of them. (View Highlight)
- Studies suggest, for example, that refugees fleeing from armed conflict are especially likely to be women and children, with men often staying behind as combatants. By contrast, women made up the vast majority of people who remained in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, mainly because they didn’t have the means to flee. (View Highlight)
- the 2004 fact sheet omitted “and children” from its phrasing of the statistic — as did the Women’s Environmental Network report that first applied the number in the context of climate change. It’s unclear whether the omission was intentional. (View Highlight)
- The potential consequences of this misinformation are many. First, by steering attention and resources toward women climate migrants, it could distract from the needs of women who haven’t been displaced but are impacted by climate change nonetheless. These women are affected in small and big ways. They often must take over agricultural and head-of-household duties from men who have moved in search of work, which places increased demand on their time and labor (View Highlight)
- Data and numbers matter. Used carelessly, they can backfire. The threat of a global climate crisis is grave enough as it is. If a claim about climate change lacks merit, no matter how eye-catching it may be, we must be wise enough to let it go. (View Highlight)