Transformative Adaptation of Labor: A System of Provision Approach to Heat Stress in Care and Construction Sectors (Transform-Labor)

The project focuses in particular on heat-exposed workers in these sectors and on labor as a crucial provisioning factor for essential services like housing and healthcare. Both sectors are characterized by gendered divisions of labor, physically demanding working conditions, labor shortages, and high levels of heat exposure. To this end, Transform-Labor operationalizes transformative adaptation using SoP. SoP provides key information for the design of transformative adaptation measures by analyzing the political-economic, socio-cultural, and institutional root causes of heat stress and social vulnerability among workers. At the same time, the approach highlights structural conditions that enable TA in these sectors. 

In collaboration with the Chamber of Labor and the Construction and Woodworkers’ Union, BOKU University, the Austrian National Public Health Institute (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH,(GÖG), and the University of Leeds, the project: 

1. Develops an SoP framework for transformative adaptation: We expand and operationalize the SoP framework in the context of TA in the mobile LTC and construction sectors, integrating climate risks and adaptation issues. 

2. Centers labor as a critical, yet understudied provisioning factor: We thereby highlight the role of at-risk workers in essential service provisioning under heat stress. 

3. Emphasizes gender dynamics as they shape vulnerabilities under heat stress: We compare experiences of laborers in two gender-dominated sectors (mobile LTC and construction). Identifying key political-economic, socio-cultural, and other institutional dynamics determining root-causes of vulnerabilities of mobile LTC and construction workers. 

4. Develops holistic indicators on the effectiveness of TA, with a focus on worker wellbeing and provisioning outcomes, going beyond utilitarian metrics, to enhance adaptation evaluation and monitoring. 

5. Designs just TA policy options, co-produced with workers and their representatives in the mobile LTC and construction sectors, focusing on securing worker’s wellbeing and sustainable provision of essential services. 

Thereby, Transform-Labor provides important insights for stakeholders in academia, politics, administration, trade unions and civil society and aligns with key priorities outlined in the Austrian National Adaptation Strategy (2024), APCC (2023), and the IPCC (2022). 

Problem statement: 

Austria faces growing health and wellbeing risks from heat stress as climate change intensifies, with severe implications for labor in care and construction. These sectors are critical for the provision of essential services like mobile long-term care (LTC) and housing, also given increasing demands for climate-proofing buildings and addressing the needs of an aging population. However, the very workforce tasked with addressing these needs is particularly exposed to heat stress and is itself highly vulnerable. This highlights the urgency of addressing heat stress in ways that can improve workers’ wellbeing and support the equitable and sustainable provision of essential services in the care and housing sectors. 

The care and construction sectors are both characterized by labor-intensive, gendered work in essential sectors, workforce deficits, and high heat stress exposure and are hence critical and innovative cases for exploring TA. Gender plays a central role in Transform-Labor due to its focus on workers in a female-dominated (mobile LTC) and a male-dominated (construction) sector —78% female workers in Austria’s health and social service sector and 84% male workers in its construction sector (Statistik Austria 2024). 

Further, the System of Provision (SoP) approach has become central to understanding and shaping transformation processes from a systems perspective but has not yet been brought into dialogue with adaptation research. Conversely, while adaptation research has recognized the potential of SoP, as highlighted in the APCC (2023), it has not yet utilized it. SoP therefore presents an innovative framework for operationalizing transformative adaptation (TA), linking technical factors—a key focus of current adaptation research—with broader structural dynamics. These include political-economic issues like growth imperatives, and labor markets; socio-cultural factors such as gender roles and risk norms; and further institutional aspects like labor laws and (re-)training programs—all of which shape root causes of worker’s vulnerability and provisioning processes. 

The project therefore poses the following overarching research question: How can SoP, focusing on labor as a critical provisioning factor, inform TA strategies to heat stress in Austria’s care and construction sectors by reconfiguring labor conditions, and ensuring just provisioning outcomes?