The Impact of Weather Shocks on Employment Outcomes : Evidence from South Africa

As climate change accelerates, the frequency of extreme weather conditions will increase. We assess the impact of rising temperatures and drought on the employment outcomes of working–age individuals in South Africa between 2008 and 2017. We merge high-resolution weather data with panel survey data that contains individual labor market outcomes and estimate causal impacts using a fixed effects framework. We find that drought conditions decrease the likelihood that an individual is employed by approximately 3.2 percentage points. These effects are concentrated in the service sector and in provinces that are more reliant on tourism. The employment outcomes of women, part-time workers, and workers without a high school diploma appear to especially sensitive to drought. Taken together, our results suggest that the impacts of climate change will be felt unequally by South Africa’s workers