Story

“Nothing left in my hands:” Myanmar’s women carry the uneven weight of crisis

13 July 2026

Caption: Despite carrying a disproportionate share of Myanmar's crisis, in lost income, unpaid care, and dwindling assets, women continue to sustain families and communities, often through each other. New research from UNDP and UN Women shows that investing in women's access to decent work, land rights, and collective networks is among the most direct routes to a recovery that holds.

Photo: © UNDP Myanmar

New research from UNDP and UN Women reveals the burden Myanmar's crisis economy is placing on women, from lost income to an unequal share of unpaid care.

“Every day, I wake up, wash up, and pray. Then I open the shop,” says Thin Thin Mar, 33, who runs a small business from the home she shares with her 86-year-old grandmother in Myanmar’s Kayah State.

Her day layers paid and unpaid work: caring for her grandmother, tutoring her nephews and nieces, keeping the books, making dinner. Most days, she must sacrifice either earnings or care: closing the shop to take her grandmother somewhere or turning down better paid but less flexible work. “There are people who call me for work,” she says, “but I cannot go because I have to stay and care for my grandmother.”

This trade-off reflects wider patterns across the country, amid the ongoing conflict, economic contraction, and insecurity that has followed the 2021 military takeover. A new report from UNDP and UN Women, Uneven Burdens: Women in Myanmar’s Crisis Economy, based on a survey of more than 5,400 people, finds that 42 per cent of women have no income of their own — almost double the rate for men. Nearly eight in ten women outside the labour force cite caregiving as the reason and women spend nearly twice as much time each day on unpaid care and housework, an imbalance that barely narrows for those who are employed.

Conflict is deepening the gender divide

The research shows that in high-conflict areas, women's employment falls to 62 per cent, compared with 82 per cent for men. Kayah has the widest gender employment gap in the country, and just 12 per cent of women there have enough to eat. Nationally, more than half of all women experience some level of food insecurity.

These pressures are compounded by displacement, with 3.7 million people forced to leave their homes in Myanmar, of which more than half are women and girls. Thin Thin Mar and her grandmother have fled their home three times. “Every time we fled, we had to sell what little we had and leave,” she says. “I had nothing left in my hands. I did not feel safe, and I could not sleep at night.”

Caption: Thin Thin Mar serves customers at the shop she operates from her home in Kayah State, Myanmar. With training and startup support from UN Women, she has built a business that allows her to earn an income while taking care of her grandmother.

Photo: © UN Women partner

What support can make possible

UN Women and UNDP support women and their communities across the country to rebuild livelihoods and strengthen resilience by expanding access to resources, skills, finance, markets and decision-making opportunities.

With business management training and seed funding from UN Women, Thin Thin Mar opened her own shop. She studied her community’s needs, stocked accordingly and today, earns a steady income, allowing her to plan ahead rather than borrowing. “I can buy the medicine my grandmother needs,” she says. “I feel much more at peace.”

Five hundred kilometres north of where Thin Thin Mar lives, in Nga Oo village in Kachin State, UNDP supported 28 of the village's most vulnerable women to form a self-organized collective, providing each with USD200 in startup capital and the freedom to decide together how to spend it. Three groups invested in pig farming and dragon fruit cultivation, while a fourth established a mushroom enterprise. When conflict in Kachin's mining areas cut off the work many households had depended on, the women's businesses became a financial lifeline for their families.

When roadblocks later disrupted supplies of mushroom spawn bags from Mandalay, the women refused to let one group's enterprise fail. Working together, they organized training to produce the bags locally, eliminating their reliance on outside suppliers. The business has since expanded to supply mushroom spawn bags for UNDP's emergency food assistance packages to displaced families across Kachin State. The episode showed something the report's statistics cannot capture: women leading collectively, investing in one another and finding practical solutions in the face of crisis.

“Before, I was very quiet and hesitant to speak or make business decisions,” says Daw Kaung Naw, 25, who used proceeds from pig farming to open the village’s first noodle shop. “Through this project, I not only improved my livelihood but also gained leadership skills and confidence.”

Caption: Women from Nga Oo village in Kachin State pose with mushroom spawn bags produced through their community enterprise. Supported by UNDP, the initiative has helped strengthen livelihoods and local food security.

Photo: © UNDP Myanmar

Closing the gap

Women’s economic roles in Myanmar, the report finds, are expanding even as their access to income, assets, and decision-making power narrows. UNDP and UN Women and their local partners are helping women turn skills and support into lasting income, but in the context of one of the world’s most underfunded crises, greater investment is needed. Closing the gap requires care services that ease the unpaid burden women shoulder alone, secure rights to land, property, and finance, and decent work that reaches the places conflict has hit hardest.

“She should not suffer alone,” Thin Thin Mar says of other women in her position. “She should not stop. I want to tell her that it is possible.”

Read the full report: Uneven Burdens: Women in Myanmar’s Crisis Economy

*This story was originally published on the UNDP Myanmar website on 13 July 2026.