High temperatures reduce labour productivity, hurt economy, shows research

The research used several high-frequency microdata sets of worker output and a nationally representative dataset of more than 58,000 factories across India. mint

2 min read . Updated: 25 Mar 2021, 06:22 PM IST Neetu Chandra Sharma

Researchers estimated that the greatest declines occurred in labor-intensive plants where people are less productive at work and more likely to be absent on hot days

New Delhi: High temperatures may lower productivity of labour and reduce output at factories, thereby hurting a country's economy, a new research has found.

The research by University of Chicago, in association with Delhi School of Economics and Indian Statistical Institute, used several high-frequency microdata sets of worker output and a nationally representative dataset of more than 58,000 factories across India. Researchers found that factories produce about 2% less revenue for every one-degree rise in annual temperature.

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This is reflected in lower GDP output in India in hot years and possibly also lower year-on-year growth. Researchers estimated that the greatest declines occurred in labor-intensive plants where people are less productive at work during hot days and are even likely to be absent from work. The aggregate effects are large enough to significantly reduce the output of the manufacturing sector.

“The effect of high temperatures on lower crop yields has been previously established. This paper shows that rising temperatures can also hurt economic output in other sectors by reducing the productivity of human labor. The damage is greatest when already warm days become hotter. If India wishes to succeed in becoming a manufacturing powerhouse using cheap labor, we need to think hard about how we can adapt to a hotter world," said Anant Sudarshan, South Asia Director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.

Sudarshan co-authored this study with E. Somanathan of Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, Rohini Somanathan of Delhi School of Economics, and Meenu Tewari of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The authors argue that although the focus of the paper is on Indian manufacturing plants nevertheless, because heat stress is a universal physiological mechanism, there are implications for any sector where labor is important such as construction or services.

The multi-year study indicated that climate control in the workplace removes productivity declines but not absenteeism, presumably because workers remain exposed to high temperatures at home and outside. And the fact that climate-control is expensive makes its use limited.

“We see that in the absence of climate control, worker productivity declines on hot days, and we spot absenteeism even for workers in factories with cooling facilities. When you compound that with limited adoption of climate control technologies in manufacturing industries, you know that we are dealing with a complex problem here," Somanathan said.