Bahi, D.D.S. and Paavola, J. orcid.org/0000-0001-5720-466X (2024) Liquefied Petroleum Gas Access and Consumption Expenditure: Measuring Energy Poverty through Wellbeing and Gender Equality in India. Sustainability, 16 (8). 3413. ISSN 2071-1050
Abstract
Despite fast electrification in India, many communities still suffer from the direct and indirect effects of energy poverty. We investigate whether access to liquified petroleum gas (LPG) and consumption expenditure can be used as measures of energy poverty in India, with a particular focus on gender equality. A district-level, quantitative analysis of household survey data was performed for the energy-poor states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Wellbeing and gender equality indices were constructed from contextually relevant indicators, whilst LPG access was considered in terms of physical access, affordability, and awareness. Levels of consumption expenditure were considered based on the updated urban poverty line for India. We found that LPG access and consumption expenditure do not have a significant relationship with wellbeing or gender equality. The result indicates that the traditional economic approach of using consumption expenditure cannot capture the multidimensionality of energy poverty. This has significant implications as it challenges the status quo of energy poverty measurement. The research also adds value to existing arguments that electricity access cannot be used as a sole indicator of energy poverty, by extending the argument to access to a modern cooking fuel. LPG access was, however, strongly associated with the education of women on the health effects of smoke. Consumption expenditure is also strongly associated with female property ownership, which calls for future research on this novel relationship.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). |
Keywords: | energy poverty; modern cooking fuels; wellbeing; gender equality; India |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) ES/LK006576/1 ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) ES/R009708/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 16 Apr 2024 10:34 |
Last Modified: | 10 May 2024 14:16 |
Published Version: | https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/8/3413#:~:text=T... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/su16083413 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:211533 |