‘When I get home, my whole body aches’: extreme heat saps health and wages of India’s poorest workers | Extreme heat

Extreme heat is pushing some of India’s poorest workers further into poverty, causing income losses of up to 9% for those working outdoors, new research has found.

Analysis by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), shared exclusively with the Guardian, found that extreme heat acts as a “poverty multiplier” for hundreds of millions of workers in India’s informal sector.

Researchers found that workers in physically demanding jobs in sectors such as agriculture, construction and transportation lost an average of 6.6% of their wages in 2024 due to extreme heat. Outdoor workers have suffered the most, losing around 9% of their wages in 2024 – £112 ($151).

The economic loss was highest in the arid desert region of Rajasthan, where there were prolonged heat waves and deaths increased due to extreme heat. Unregistered workers in the region were unable to work due to the exhausting effect of extreme heat on the body and suffered a loss equivalent to 8.3 percent of their income.

IIED research It is estimated that 21.1 working days are lost every year in India due to extreme heat; This is an unaffordable loss for many of the 550 million workers in the informal sector.

Ritu Bharadwaj, director of climate finance at IIED, said the research shows how extreme heat is deepening poverty and worsening existing structural inequalities in India, which aims to become a developed country in the next two decades.

He said: “The heat is quietly pushing these families deeper into poverty.

“As temperatures rise, their productivity drops, so they earn less. As incomes drop, so does their food purchases. And because they can’t afford to stop, they keep working at it, causing permanent damage to their health. They’re paying with their health and savings for a crisis they did nothing to cause.”

Human-caused climate disruption is making heat waves around the world more intense and more likely to occur. India, a country where nine out of 10 people work in the informal economy, may be one of the first places where heatwaves exceed the limit of human survival. The World Bank report said.

The research estimates that heat could cost the Indian economy at least £58 billion (equivalent to 2% of GDP), including lost wages due to reduced productivity, job closures and long-term losses from heat-related illnesses.

The analysis describes three ways that heat exposure reduces working hours: heat-related illnesses, reduction in work capacity or maintenance of normal productivity, and time lost when workplaces suspend operations.

Informal workers include some of the most socially and economically marginalized people who lack employment security, forcing them to work with illnesses and endure unsafe conditions.

The report noted that access to drinking water, shade, rest areas, sanitation and medical support was poor at the work site. Later, many workers returned to homes “where there was no escape from the heat.”

Eight construction workers who spoke to the Guardian said they had fallen ill repeatedly due to the heat in the past four months, forcing them to miss work and lose their income. Some fainted and suffered serious injuries, but no compensation was paid by employers. Some were even denied wages.

Husband and wife Inder and Laxmi Kumar, who work at a dusty construction site in Gurugram, a satellite city outside Delhi, said they were both bedridden with fever, body aches and fatigue. But after losing eight days’ wages, they could no longer afford to stay home.

“I felt like I was going to collapse, like my body was on fire,” Laxmi said. “We kept working because if we stopped we wouldn’t get paid.”

Doctors advised the couple to rest, saying they were exhausted from dehydration and heat.

The couple earns 800 rupees (£6) a day, supporting their two young sons and four other family members in their hometown in Madhya Pradesh. They start work around 9 a.m. and spend eight to 10 hours a day mixing cement, transporting building materials and laying bricks; meanwhile there is almost no break and little shade beyond the unfinished structure. Their five-year-old son is playing among the rubble.

They have fallen ill three times in the last three months alone, lost nearly four weeks of work and spent most of their income on medication.

“We had no choice but to go back,” Inder said. “Anything we manage to save is spent the next time we get sick. We don’t have much left to send home. I pray for this heat to end. It’s torture.”

Inder said he doesn’t know of a single worker at the site who has recovered from the illness this summer. Extreme heat often spoiled the food they prepared for lunch and made them even sicker.

The family’s home is a 2.5-metre (8 ft) square tarpaulin shelter inside the unfinished building. Just an hour after returning from work in the evening, when the diesel generators are turned off, the fan stops, leaving them to sleep in the stifling heat.

“When I come home, my whole body hurts,” Laxmi said. “But my son gets restless because of the heat and keeps crying. Then I have to cook again and the room gets even hotter.

“It feels like we are working and sleeping inside a furnace.”

The burden is often heavier for female workers. Many also spend their working days caring for young children.

35-year-old Kumkumari poured water on her two-year-old daughter next to the water tanker at the construction site. “This is the only way to calm him down,” Kumkumari said. “He gets sick often and when that happens I have to take care of him instead of working.”

Prolonged exposure to heat and dehydration increases the risk of developing chronic kidney disease over time. IIED research estimates that one in 20 informal workers in India may develop chronic kidney disease after years of repeated heat exposure, equivalent to more than 26 million workers.

Among them was 38-year-old Sattavir, who was standing on the roadside in Gurugram, hoping a contractor would offer him a day’s work.

In the last two months, he was only able to work for eight days after contracting a kidney infection caused by working in extreme heat and being constantly dehydrated.

“Heat is lethal,” he said. “I barely earned 7,000 rupees in the last two months but spent around 9,000 rupees on medicine and treatment. I am already in debt but I am still looking for a job even though doctors say I need treatment for my kidneys.”

After waiting a few hours in the sun, Sattavir was not hired; For the third day in a row, he returned home empty-handed. “When people see you’re weak, they don’t hire you,” he said.