A new village-level panel reveals hidden scale of drought-driven agricultural job losses across rural India

A new village-level panel reveals hidden scale of drought-driven agricultural job losses across rural India | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article A new village-level panel reveals hidden scale of drought-driven agricultural job losses across rural India Robbin Jan van Duijne, Fabien Cottier, Tanuj Pareek This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6303454/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Droughts threaten agricultural livelihoods for millions, particularly in developing countries. In India, agriculture supports half of the 550-million-strong workforce, yet drought impacts on agricultural job losses remain poorly quantified, partially due to scarce labor-market data. Here we present results from a new village-level panel dataset linking employment data from two Indian population censuses across 450,000 villages with high-resolution (0.05°) climate data. Each additional drought month during the growing season (June–October) reduces male agricultural labor participation by approximately 1.0 percentage point for moderate droughts and 1.2 percentage points for severe droughts one year later. Although employment partially rebounds three years post-drought, recovery does not offset initial losses, causing lasting job reductions. Applying CMIP6 mid-century projections (SSP245 and SSP585), we estimate by 2050 India will experience 1.5–2.0 additional months of moderate drought and 1.2–1.6 additional months of severe drought annually, further destabilizing rural labor markets amid an employment crisis. Scientific community and society/Developing world Scientific community and society/Social sciences drought agriculture job losses India CMIP6 Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files NCCSupplementaryInformationfile25032025.docx Supplementary Information file Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6303454","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":437158009,"identity":"f3c91df8-2c4a-4714-ba10-702368295e9d","order_by":0,"name":"Robbin Jan van 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