Extreme heat is costing Bangladesh’s informal workers millions of workdays and an estimated Tk50,630 crore in wages each year, while also exposing them to serious health risks, a new study has found.
The study by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program (OKUP) estimates that informal workers lose Tk50,630 crore in wages annually because of extreme heat, equivalent to 0.91% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
When the long-term economic costs associated with chronic kidney disease caused by repeated heat exposure are included, the impact could rise to 1.4% of GDP.
The report, titled “No Escaping the Heat: Health and Economic Impacts of Heat Stress on Informal Workers in Urban Bangladesh,” is based on a survey of 175 households of informal workers in Dhaka, including construction workers, rickshaw pullers and garment workers.
The study found that around 32.16 million workers engaged in physically demanding, heat-exposed jobs across Dhaka, Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions lose an estimated Tk28,890 crore in wages each year.
Outdoor workers lose an average of 23.7 workdays annually because of extreme heat, compared with 13.5 days for indoor workers.
Illness is the main reason for lost workdays. Outdoor workers lose an average of 15.3 days because of heat-related illness, while indoor workers lose 8.1 days.
Much of the remaining loss is attributed to reduced productivity.
For families dependent on daily wages, the financial impact is significant. Outdoor workers lose an average of Tk18,383 a year, while indoor workers lose Tk10,999.
For low-income households, the report said, these losses often mean borrowing money, cutting food spending or delaying medical treatment.
Informal workers account for 84.9% of all employment in Bangladesh, and earnings in many of their occupations depend directly on physical labour.
Unlike formal-sector employees, they generally have no written contracts, paid leave, social security or effective workplace protections.
Indoor workers also vulnerable
The study challenges the assumption that indoor workers are protected from extreme heat.
Garment workers often spend long hours inside enclosed factories with poor ventilation, allowing heat to build up throughout the day.
Despite being shielded from direct sunlight, their reported rates of heat exhaustion were almost identical to those of outdoor workers.
Outdoor workers spend an average of 9.5 hours a day working during the hot season, including nearly six hours in direct sunlight. Indoor workers work an average of 8.8 hours a day and are often under production pressure that limits their ability to take breaks.
Among outdoor workers, 27% said they always had access to cool drinking water at work, while only 11.5% always had access to shaded rest areas. Some 61.5% said they never had access to first-aid facilities.
Indoor workers had better access to water and shade but took fewer breaks. More than half, or 56.6%, reported getting only one break during the workday, which the study attributed to strict production targets in garment factories.
Housing conditions further compound the problem.
Among indoor-working households surveyed, 66% had roofs made of tin or asbestos, while 92.9% lived in homes below the minimum standard for housing space.
Among outdoor-worker households, 54.1% lived under tin or asbestos roofs and 57.3% lived in homes below the minimum threshold for living space.
Outdoor workers rated the heat in their homes at 4.4 out of five, compared with 4.3 among indoor workers.
Most households had neither air conditioning nor water-based coolers and relied mainly on fans, which provide limited relief in small rooms, particularly during power cuts.
“Heat exposure doesn't stop when their shift is over,” said Ritu Bharadwaj, IIED’s director of climate resilience, finance and loss and damage.
“They go from the hot worksite to a house with a tin roof, a single fan and frequent power cuts, with no opportunity to recover.”
Health damage remains hidden
Repeated heat exposure and dehydration can cause serious health problems, including kidney damage.
The study found that 23.1% of workers had symptoms consistent with acute kidney injury, while about 6% could later develop chronic kidney disease because of repeated heat exposure.
If applied nationwide, the figure would correspond to around 3.56 million people working in physically demanding informal jobs.
The resulting health effects could lead to an estimated loss of 0.61 billion working days each year, according to the study.
Workers also reported widespread heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heatstroke.
During the hot season, the rate of heat exhaustion was almost the same among outdoor and indoor workers.
Very few workers who suffered heatstroke received medical treatment. Around 19 in 20 workers who experienced heatstroke said they had received no medical care, the report said.
Heat also had a significant psychological impact. During the hot season, the psychological stress index more than doubled, reaching 5.2 out of 10 among outdoor workers and 4.9 among indoor workers.
Workers reported low mood, anxiety, irritability, mistakes at work and difficulty sleeping.
Heat deepens poverty
Even before accounting for heat-related income losses, the surveyed households were earning below the living wage for Dhaka.
Against a benchmark annual living wage of Tk3,70,067, outdoor-worker households earned an average of Tk2,16,849, while indoor-worker households earned Tk2,45,127.
After accounting for heat-related income losses, annual household earnings fell to Tk1,98,464 for outdoor-worker households and Tk2,34,130 for indoor-worker households.
The living-wage deficit consequently increased from 41.4% to 46.4% for outdoor-worker households and from 33.8% to 36.8% for indoor-worker households.
Heat also worsened food insecurity.
More than one-third of households with outdoor workers and 28.3% of households with indoor workers said their food intake had not been adequate every day during the previous month.
Outdoor-worker households reported an average of 12.7 days without adequate food in the previous month, compared with 12.5 days among indoor-worker households.
Food shortages were concentrated between April and July, with May and June identified as the worst months.
Migrants left out of support
Internal migrants made up a significant share of the surveyed households—73% of outdoor-worker households and 52.8% of indoor-worker households.
Because many migrants remain registered in their home districts, they face difficulties accessing social protection, food assistance and healthcare in Dhaka, where they work.
Only a small proportion of surveyed households participated in government food-assistance programmes.
About nine in 10 households received no food assistance, according to the report.
Bangladesh also lacks a national health protection scheme covering urban informal workers, leaving them to pay for treatment themselves, borrow money or avoid seeking medical care altogether.
The study said the current social protection system is largely focused on rural poverty alleviation, disaster relief and locally administered benefits, leaving many urban informal workers outside its coverage.
Cash support recommended
The researchers recommended introducing a cash-transfer programme for informal workers through mobile financial services such as bKash and Nagad.
The estimated annual cost would range from Tk386 crore to Tk1,158 crore, depending on the severity of the heat season.
A more comprehensive package combining cash transfers, temporary health assistance and improved access to food programmes would cost between Tk862 crore and Tk1,634 crore annually, the report estimated.
The researchers said the cost would represent only a small fraction of the economic losses caused by extreme heat.
“Climate change is causing this problem across the world, and Bangladesh is no exception. We will work to address the losses caused by heat stress and explore how to incorporate this issue into policy,” said Labour and Employment Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury.
“If we cannot create a suitable environment for workers at the workplace, productivity will decline. Inshallah, we will address this issue,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
