Too Hot to Handle: When Heat Stress Negatively Impacts Work Habits in Senegal

Keywords: time use, heat stress, climate change, West Africa
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

Farmers in West Africa must be strategic in how they spend their time on work, as the number of activities frequently exceeds the number of hours in a day. During the rainy season, there are agricultural and household production activities that must be done in order to grow enough food to survive and more generally to support their livelihoods. However, heat stress due to climate change is posed to increase, limiting the number of workable hours during the day. Our study focuses on how participants experience heat stress at three critical periods of the crop calendar- sowing, the height of the rainy season, and harvest. Through survey data and voice recordings, we measure how heat impacts the participants, and if they feel uncomfortable to the point of changing work habits. Additionally, we cross reference their experiences with remotely sensed temperature data as measured by CHIRTS. Although outside the scope of our study, we speculate that changes in work habits due to heat stress may have long term impacts on how work is divided between household members and the time of day that different activities are performed.