Extreme High Temperatures and Urban Resident Unemployment
As global warming intensifies,extreme heat brings significant negative impacts on people's work and life.Increasing research indicates that high temperatures exert numerous adverse effects on both physical and mental health.Against this backdrop,it is crucial to explore the unemployment phenomenon that extreme heat may trigger and the pathways through which its negative impacts can be mitigated.Using data on extreme heat days and urban unemploy-ment rates from 230 prefecture-level cities between 2010 and 2020,this study discusses the impact of extreme heat on urban unemployment,the specific mechanisms involved,and the moderating effects of applying green policies.Base-line regression results show that an increase in extreme heat days significantly raises urban unemployment rates,a con-clusion that remains valid after robustness and endogeneity tests.Mechanism analysis reveals that more extreme heat days increase labor costs,leading to a reduction in job opportunities and ultimately elevating urban unemployment rates.The moderating effects of green policy applications indicate that green financial policies,represented by green credit,and environmental regulatory policies,represented by the implementation of new air quality standards and the number of environmental penalties,both exert significant negative moderating effects on unemployment caused by ex-treme heat,suggesting that green policies have a stabilizing effect on employment.Finally,heterogeneity analysis re-sults show that unemployment in cities in the eastern region with better economic development levels is particularly af-fected by extreme heat.Based on these findings,it is recommended that more attention should be paid to the impacts of climate change and that the laborer rights and interests protection system should be improved to promote high-quality and full employment.Enterprises should actively take on social responsibility,pursue green transformation,and create"green jobs."Meanwhile,the government should enhance the coverage and support of green policies,continuously en-rich the toolkit of green policies,and fully leverage the"employment-stabilizing"effect of green development to pro-vide significant support for achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals and green development objectives.
Extreme High TemperaturesLabor DemandEmployment StabilizationGreen Policy Tools
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
维普
