Staying with the tide: Gendered climate immobility

When the sea rises and the land sinks, the most obvious reaction is to leave. For decades, the standard story told by scientists and policymakers has been that climate change forces people to migrate, turning them into refugees fleeing disaster. In this view, moving away is the smart, rational choice for survival. Yet, in many parts of the world, people do not leave. They stay. This phenomenon, known as climate immobility, is not simply a failure to move or a lack of money to buy a ticket. It is a complex decision shaped by deep ties to home, the need to care for family, and the specific ways people earn a living. Understanding why people stay is just as important as understanding why they go, because it reveals how communities actually survive in a changing world.

A new study from the coastal regency of Demak in Indonesia offers a fresh look at this question, focusing specifically on the lives of women. For years, research on climate migration has often overlooked the daily realities of those who remain, particularly the women who hold households together through informal work. By listening to the stories of nineteen women and local leaders in villages battered by chronic tidal flooding, researchers have uncovered a different kind of adaptation. They found that staying is not a passive act of being trapped, but an active strategy where women use their labor and social networks to keep their families afloat.

The setting for this story is a stretch of coastline where the ocean has become a permanent neighbor. Over the last two decades, rising sea levels and sinking land have turned what was once occasional flooding into a daily rhythm. In these villages, seawater does not just visit; it settles. It fills the streets, seeps into the foundations of homes, and sometimes rises twice a day, trapping residents inside their own houses. For the people living there, the water is not a rare disaster but a constant condition of life. The researchers traveled to these villages between 2023 and 2024, sitting down with women who sort fish, clean shellfish, and process seafood, as well as with community leaders, to ask a simple question: Why do you stay when the water keeps coming?

The answers they received challenged the idea that staying is just a sign of poverty. While money is certainly a factor—many families simply cannot afford to move to a new place and start over—the decision to remain is deeply rooted in something more profound. The women described a powerful sense of belonging. One woman explained that she had tried living with relatives in a different area, but she felt out of place and uncomfortable. She returned to her village because the neighbors were friendly, the community was active, and she felt at home. In these tight-knit villages, social ties act as a safety net. When the water rises, neighbors help each other; when the tide recedes, they share what they have. This web of relationships makes the idea of leaving feel like losing a part of oneself.

Beyond the emotional pull of home, the women's livelihoods are inextricably tied to the coast. Their work is not something they can pack up and take to a city. They sort the daily catch of local fishermen, clean shellfish, and dry fish for sale. This work is irregular and depends entirely on the weather and the seasons; if there is no fish, there is no work. But it is also the engine of the household economy. One woman noted that if she moved, there would be no guarantee of finding similar work elsewhere. The coast provides the resources they know how to use, and the community provides the market for their labor. Leaving would mean cutting themselves off from the very source of their survival.

The study reveals that these women are not just surviving; they are constantly adapting. They are the architects of everyday resilience. When the water rises, they raise their houses, often doing it in stages as they can afford the materials. One woman described how her home has been lifted twice, a slow, incremental process that mirrors the slow rise of the sea. They diversify their income, taking on different tasks depending on what is available. In some villages, this adaptation has grown into community innovation. A local leader described how the community began planting mangroves to protect the shore, and from that effort, they developed new businesses making crackers, coffee, and syrup from the mangrove plants. These projects employ dozens of women, turning a defensive measure against erosion into a new source of income.

The researchers argue that this pattern of staying and adapting is a form of "gendered climate immobility." It is a specific type of survival strategy where the roles women play in the family and the community become the anchor that keeps the household in place. While men might migrate for work, women often stay behind to manage the home, care for children, and maintain the informal economy that keeps the family fed. Their labor in sorting fish and processing seafood is not just a job; it is a critical adaptation mechanism that allows the household to endure the daily pressure of the tides.

This perspective shifts the conversation away from seeing these women as victims waiting to be rescued or moved. Instead, they are shown as active agents making calculated choices to remain in a difficult environment because it is where their skills, their social networks, and their economic opportunities exist. The study suggests that the decision to stay is a rational response to a complex set of pressures, not a failure to adapt. It highlights that adaptation is not always about building massive sea walls or relocating entire towns to higher ground. Sometimes, it is about the quiet, persistent work of women who raise their floors, diversify their income, and lean on their neighbors to weather the storm.

The findings from Demak suggest that policies aimed at helping coastal communities need to look closer at these local realities. Too often, adaptation plans focus on large infrastructure projects or resettlement programs that ignore the social and economic ties that bind people to their land. By recognizing the crucial role women play in maintaining household stability and the value of the informal economy, planners can support the strategies that are already working. The study concludes that understanding climate change requires looking beyond the water and the weather to see the people who live with it, the choices they make, and the intricate ways they hold their world together.