Heat Doesn’t Affect All Bodies Equally: Older Women, Inequality and Climate Vulnerability
When I lived in Massachusetts, where winter temperatures are so low that the wind-chill can reach 20 degrees below zero, I was surprised at how poorly prepared homes were for the cold, even public buildings. At the university, cold air came in through the electrical outlets, so students kept their laptops plugged in even when the battery was full. In my bedroom (I shared a house with a married couple), I put insulating tape between the floorboards, because a terrible cold draft came up from underneath. A Swedish researcher summed it up neatly: “In Boston, winter catches people by surprise every year, so they’re never prepared.”
In Spain we don’t reach those levels of cold, which might explain why certain areas aren’t prepared for freezing spells (like a ‘Filomena’ storm). In a way, we have to allocate resources according to what’s likely (I stress again: in certain areas). What surprises me is that the same lack of foresight the Bostonians seemed to show with their poorly insulated homes is echoed here, with worse results, when it comes to heat.
Heat is not just a meteorological phenomenon or a seasonal inconvenience. I won’t even talk about climate change here, because plenty of others do that better than I could. What I want to talk about is how heatwaves are not only episodes of extreme temperature, but situations of social risk — even when they’re not linked to wildfires, as we’re seeing these days. And heat (or wildfires, we could also point out) doesn’t affect everyone the same way, just like almost every crisis.
Heat meets different bodies, with different health conditions, but also with different housing, incomes, jobs and support networks. That’s why, when we talk about climate vulnerability, it isn’t enough to look at the thermometer or the trees around us — as necessary as they are. We also need to look at living conditions. And that’s where gender matters.
Gender is a relevant dimension of social vulnerability to climate change, although it never acts in isolation. It intersects with age, income, disability, health, employment, housing conditions and support networks. Gender inequalities can translate into unequal access to economic resources, information, social protection and mobility. They therefore shape both exposure to risk and the real possibility of protecting oneself against it — even the opportunity for foresight.
This interaction is especially relevant for older women. Not because all of them are vulnerable by definition, nor because old age should automatically be equated with frailty (we’ve discussed that before). Vulnerability to heat doesn’t suddenly appear at 70, 80 or 90 — although at those ages we are indeed more sensitive and vulnerable to temperature change. The real issue, as I’ve mentioned before, is different: old age is the point at which many forms of inequality accumulated over a lifetime reach their peak. The body matters, of course — and with it, age — but it always ‘lives’ within a context.
Climate change doesn’t create inequalities, but it can intensify them. It amplifies risks that already existed and makes previous cracks more visible. A heatwave doesn’t hit someone living in a well-insulated home, with air conditioning, sufficient income and close company, the same way it hits someone living alone, on a low pension, in a poorly ventilated home, without urban shade, and afraid to turn on the air conditioning (if they even have it) because of the cost of electricity.
Regarding the differences between men and women in the face of high temperatures, these result from physiological, social and occupational factors. Some research suggests that older and middle-aged women may be more vulnerable to heat under certain conditions, although these differences also depend on other thermoregulatory mechanisms and on social factors that influence exposure and the capacity for protection against heat.
However, it would be a mistake to explain these differences by biology alone. As I said before, the body matters, but it’s always shaped by the environment we live in: the type of housing we have, our income, our work history, or the family and community support available to us. Biology can increase sensitivity to heat, but social inequalities largely determine who is better able to protect themselves and who has more difficulty doing so.
It’s also worth noting that men can face greater heat-related risks in certain age groups, though not necessarily in old age (thanks to retirement, a social achievement some seem to be questioning). For example, at working age, men are more commonly found in outdoor jobs or in environments especially exposed to high temperatures, such as agriculture or construction. So in some age groups the risk is greater for men, while at very advanced ages it can be higher for women — and not only because of their greater longevity (that is, it isn’t simply due to their greater representation at older ages).
Why does this matter? It’s not about determining whether men or women are more vulnerable to heat, but about understanding under what circumstances they are, in order to find appropriate solutions.
I mentioned earlier the accumulation of inequalities: many older women have had work histories marked by low wages, informal jobs or interruptions linked to caregiving. These trajectories have lasting consequences: lower pensions, less capacity to save, less room to adapt their homes, and more difficulty covering extraordinary energy costs. As we can see in the statistics on living conditions, they are poorer. And poverty also makes us vulnerable to extreme heat: people living in poverty can face up to four times the risk of suffering its effects.
If, on top of economic inequality and cost-avoiding behaviours (like not turning on the air conditioning, if you even have it — and I know I’m repeating myself, but I think it’s worth insisting), we add the greater tendency to live in single-person households, to care for others… the combination can be deadly in the most literal sense. Let’s remember that these people — the ones vulnerable to heat — don’t have a house in a village to flee to when the heat hits, aren’t aware of what we now call ‘climate shelters’… they don’t have strategies to cope with heat that exhausts us even when we do have them.
These examples, especially the one about low income, allow us to shift the focus from mere exposure to high temperatures (which can be relatively similar across populations of the same age) towards the real capacity to respond. Not everyone can adapt their home, change their routines, reduce their exposure, or afford the energy cost needed to keep a safe temperature at home.
I also want to return to the issue of single-person households; here we’re not talking about whether someone feels lonely or not, but about whether they can count on help if they need it. For example, during a heatwave, the immediate availability of help can be reduced, so that no one detects in time a case of dehydration, sudden confusion, a fall, heatstroke, or the worsening of a pre-existing illness. It can also mean that asking for help depends entirely on the person’s own ability to recognise the risk. And we aren’t always able to detect the signs of heatstroke in time.
This is where support networks are essential — not only family networks, but also neighbourhood, community and public-service networks. The problem is that these networks don’t always exist, and don’t always reach people in time or reach those who need them.
I’d also like to point out that women are not only recipients of care, but that a large proportion of them provide it. Caring for grandchildren can, in this sense, be a form of protection, but that’s not the case when caring for dependent partners, sick relatives, or even other older people. During a heatwave, caregiving can increase exposure, putting these women in a double position of risk: their own, and the risk that comes from sustaining other people’s everyday wellbeing.
Of course, we should repeat as many times as necessary that it’s not simply the combination of age and gender that makes us vulnerable: a 70-year-old woman who lives alone, with a reduced pension, limited mobility and a poorly insulated home, does not face the same risk as an 82-year-old woman in good health, with air conditioning and a close family network.
Extreme heat forces us to look at old age differently: not as a homogeneous stage of frailty, but as a moment in the life course where inequalities accumulated over decades become visible. The heat devouring us this summer falls on a deeply unequal society. When it affects older women, it doesn’t just increase the physiological risks of old age; it meets an entire life story of caregiving and invisible work, lower pensions, inadequate housing, and networks that aren’t always available.
