On call in a burning city: Women platform workers and the impact of working in extreme heat

This report shows that for women in beauty services, domestic work, food delivery, e-commerce, and ride-hailing, heat is not just a climate issue. It is a labour rights, gender, health, and urban infrastructure crisis.The report draws on consultations with researchers, practitioners, and worker representatives, a baseline survey of 26 women before peak summer, a focus group discussion with beauty-platform workers, and a summer survey of 100 women across Delhi-NCR. It captures heat exposure across the full working day, including travel between jobs, waiting for bookings, carrying equipment, and working inside customers’ homes where ventilation, water, cooling, and toilet access are uncertain.

The findings make clear that platform work is far less flexible than it appears. App-based systems of booking allocation, ratings, incentives, cancellation rules, and customer expectations restrict workers’ ability to slow down, take a break, reject a distant task, or stop when they feel unwell.