Giri Prasad Kandel

Abstract Agricultural systems in rural Nepal face significant transformation due to climate change and shifting household labour dynamics. Male out-migration, a key but underexplored driver of this change, disrupts traditional gendered labor divisions and reshapes agricultural decision-making. In smallholder farms, traditionally, men are more responsible for tasks like ploughing and harvesting, whereas women take on planting, weeding, and winnowing roles.

1 INTRODUCTION Rural communities are facing many dilemmas as the impacts of climate change on rural landscapes become more evident (Mahmood et al., 2019). Moreover, implementing climate change adaptation efforts is also a growing challenge (Asfaw et al., 2019), which has broad and profound implications for achieving sustainable development, particularly in the agricultural sector (Altieri et al., 2015).

2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: ACTION THEORY OF ADAPTATION AND CONCEPT OF INTERSECTIONALITY As a theoretical background for this study, we integrated an action theory of adaptation by Eisenack and Stecker (2011) with the concept of intersectionality.