Cultivating Resilience: Feminisation as a Pathway to Climate Adaptation in Cambodia's Agriculture

Climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of climatic hazards, disrupting agricultural systems and reshaping rural livelihoods worldwide. In climatevulnerable countries like Cambodia, these disruptions are also transforming gender roles within agriculture. While the feminisation of agriculture—where women assume greater agricultural responsibilities as men transition to non-farm work—has been widely observed, less is known about whether this trend also extends to women’s involvement in farm-level decision-making. This case study examines the relationship between climate change adaptation, climatic hazards, and the multidimensional feminisation of agriculture in Cambodia. Using nationally representative, sex-disaggregated data from the Cambodia Agriculture Survey (2019–2021), covering over 40,000 households, we analyse shifts in women’s roles as unpaid family labourers, hired workers, and decision-makers in agricultural production. Our findings show a significant increase in women’s participation in all aspects of agriculture during the study period. Feminisation was more pronounced in female-headed households, those heavily dependent on agriculture for income, and those exposed to climatic shocks—especially droughts and floods. We find that crop and livelihood diversification, key household adaptation strategies, are strongly associated with increased female labour and decision-making roles. By contrast, we find little evidence that male outmigration or non-climatic hazards (e.g., pests & diseases) are major drivers of feminisation in this context. These results highlight the need for gender-responsive agricultural and climate adaptation policies. In particular, agricultural extension programs should actively support women’s access to climate-smart technologies, training, and resources—especially in areas most affected by climate change—so that women’s growing role in agriculture translates into greater resilience rather than deepening the burdens of climate stress.