Conference Agenda

This paper examines how gender norms shape the labor market response to climate shocks in Egypt, using four waves of the Egyptian Labor Market Panel Survey (2006–2023) matched with high-resolution temperature data. Exploiting exogenous variation in subdistrict temperature deviations from historical means, I document three findings. First, climate shocks widen the gendered employment gap: a one degree Celsius increase in temperature deviation raises male labor force participation by about 0.9 pp while reducing female participation by 1.6 pp, with women exiting the labor force entirely rather than transitioning into unemployment. Second, this exit is not driven by differential occupational heat exposure; the female differential is strongest in low-exposure current employment categories, pointing to household-level mechanisms. Third, the moderating role of norms is heterogeneous. Perceived societal norms, capturing the external image of female employment and marriageability, have no significant influence on the female climate penalty. In contrast, more egalitarian intra-household gender norms attenuate it. The findings suggest that climate change may exacerbate gender inequalities in labor markets governed by restrictive household norms, with implications for climate adaptation policy in developing economies where intra-household bargaining, rather than public perception alone, mediates women’s economic resilience.