Rural families in Bangladesh are using a large chunk of their budgets to protect themselves from climate change, especially households headed by women who are allocating up to 30 per cent of their spending for that purpose, researchers said on Wednesday.

The high share of spending by female-led households - many based in the flood-prone north - is double the average of 15 per cent because women have lower incomes than men, said a study by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Often men from Bangladesh’s northwest regions migrate on a seasonal basis to work elsewhere, leaving women to run the home.

Common measures taken by rural families to adapt to climate change and reduce risks include raising the plinth of their houses above flood-water levels, planting trees and making shelters to keep livestock safe.

Low-lying Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of rising global temperatures, including more severe monsoon flooding, fiercer storms and higher sea levels.

“While men spend a greater amount for climate adaptation in absolute terms, women have to spend a larger share of their smaller average income,” said Paul Steele, IIED’s chief economist and one of the study authors.

For the study, IIED, Kingston University London and the UN Development Programme in Bangladesh surveyed 3,094 rural households in 10 districts to analyse how gender and socio-economic factors shaped spending to protect households from disasters like storms, floods, drought, salinity and heat.

The researchers found that 43 per cent of households were exposed to floods, 41 per cent to storms and 83 per cent were affected by longer-term stresses like drought or salinity.

Each household spent nearly 7,500 taka ($88) a year on preventive measures in 2021, which would add up to about $1.7 billion among the wider rural population, the study said.

The findings show that the Bangladesh government and donor nations need to provide more financial support to poor households dealing directly with climate change, including those headed by women who are shouldering the burden, Steele said.

Read the full article about women and climate change from Thomson Reuters Foundation at Eco-Business.