Energy poverty is the inability of a household to secure a socially and materially necessary level of domestic energy services. In developing countries it usually means lacking electricity or clean cooking facilities; in developed countries it usually means being unable to afford adequate heating, cooling and lighting. In 2024, an estimated 655 million people had no access to electricity, more than 560 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and about two billion cooked with polluting fuels and technologies.
In developing countries, poor women and girls living in the rural areas are significantly affected by energy poverty, because they are usually responsible for providing the primary energy for households.United Nations Development Programme. (2013). Gender and energy. Retrieved January 15, 2020, from https://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/gender/Gender and Environment/PB4-AP-Gender-and-Energy.pdf In developed countries, old women living alone are mostly affected by energy poverty due to the low income and high cost of energy service.European Institution for Gender Equality (EIGE). (2017). Gender and energy. Retrieved from https://eige.europa.eu/publications/gender-and-energy
Household energy access is increasingly important for health as the climate warms, for example through cooling, but a 2019 review found that most research on household energy does not take climate change into account.
Women and children do most fuel and water collection in households without modern energy. World Health Organization survey data from 13 countries found that girls in sub-Saharan African homes using polluting cookstoves spend about 18 hours a week collecting fuel or water, compared with 15 hours for boys. In homes that mainly use cleaner stoves and fuels, the figures are 5 and 2 hours.
In developing countries
Domestic responsibilities In developing countries, energy poverty has significant gender characteristics. A World Bank analysis of household surveys from 89 countries found that women of childbearing age are more likely than men to live in poor households: about 122 women aged 25–34 live in poor households for every 100 men of the same age. Women living in rural areas are usually responsible for housework, including gathering fuels and water, cooking, farming etc. In India, the National Family Health Survey found that 58.6% of households used clean cooking fuel in 2019–21, up from 43.8% in 2015–16, a period in which the government expanded LPG access through the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana.
Health impacts from energy consumption Energy poverty in rural households causes the health problems of women and children. One health problem is caused by indoor air pollution from traditional stoves. The World Health Organization estimates that household air pollution, mostly from cooking with solid fuels and kerosene, caused about 2.9 million deaths in 2021, including more than 309,000 children under five. Women and children carry the largest share of this burden because they do most of the cooking and fuel collection. The other health risks are caused by the heavy workload of collecting fuels and exposed to malnutrition. Meanwhile, the scarcity of fuel makes them less likely to use the fuels for boiling water, which might increase risk of water-borne diseases.
Reliable electricity is needed to light deliveries, run medical equipment, and refrigerate blood and vaccines, and its absence makes night-time and emergency obstetric care, including caesarean sections, harder to provide. About 15% of health-care facilities in sub-Saharan Africa have no electricity at all, and only half of the region's hospitals have a reliable supply. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for about 70% of the world's estimated 260,000 maternal deaths in 2023.
Time poverty Energy poverty further affects women by putting them into the situation of "time poverty", which refers to the lack of time for resting, leisure, working outside the home, or getting education. It is the consequence of spending a long time gathering the fuels to supply the domestic energy use. The forest degradation caused by climate change might exaggerate the current problem.
Participation in decision-making Also, energy poverty and gender manifest in the area of decision making and participation within the household. Studies have shown that in the rural areas in developing countries, men usually have more power in making decisions in purchasing energy devices or new technologies.Leslie Gray, Alaina Boyle, Erika Francks & Victoria Yu (2019) The power of small-scale solar: gender, energy poverty, and entrepreneurship in Tanzania, Development in Practice, 29:1, 26–39, DOI: 10.1080/09614524.2018.1526257 This is because men and women have different and distinct perception about energy needs. Excluding women from participating public discussion and decision-making process is likely to lead to the failure in addressing the effects of energy poverty on women.
Education Energy poverty affects teaching and learning. Lack of access to energy reduces children performance and attendance.
Tanzania
In sub-Saharan African countries, energy poverty is especially challenging, due to the high cost of extending grid electricity in existing scattered rural settlement.Karekezi, S., and W. Kithyoma. 2002. "Renewable Energy Strategies for Rural Africa: Is a PV-led Renewable Energy Strategy the Right Approach for Providing Modern Energy to the Rural Poor of Sub-Saharan Africa?" Energy Policy 30 (11): 1071–1086. In Tanzania, access to electricity rose from 14% of the population in 2011 to 46% in 2022, leaving more than half the population without it.> The lack of electricity leads to the missing of efficient energy services like cooking, lighting etc. Hence the basic capabilities for development, like education, health, transportation are restricted.Harrison, K., A. Scott, and R. Hogarth. 2016. Accelerating Access to Electricity in Africa With Off-Grid Solar: The Impact of Solar Household Solutions. ODI Report 9. London: Overseas Development Institute. In face of energy poverty, the burden of supplying household energy use disproportionately lies on women than men. A study of Solar Sister, a women-run solar lantern enterprise in Tanzania, found that the lanterns had positive effects on household savings, health, education and women's economic productivity.
In developed countries In developed countries, lone and old women are affected disproportionately by energy poverty. There are more women living alone than men because of their relatively longer life expectancy. Those older women usually have less pensions to support themselves, because they worked mostly inside the house. The rise in energy cost affects the affordability of heating and cooling service at home. In England and Wales, excess winter deaths are consistently higher among women than men: the Office for National Statistics estimated 18,000 among women and 13,100 among men in the winter of 2012/13. Furthermore, the increasing energy price, relative low income, and together energy-inefficient houses contribute to energy poverty in developed countries.
Components There are gender gaps in the energy labor market, energy-related education and decision-making process in developed countries. In the European Union in 2010, men made up 77.9% of the energy-sector workforce and women 22.1%. By the European Commission's count, women's share of the EU energy workforce was 24% in 2022, up from 19% in 2010. Studies show that the under-representation is attributed to the following reasons: lack of necessary skills caused by the energy education gap, the perception of stereotypical men-domain energy sectors, and lack of opportunities for women working in energy sectors. The gendered energy education is related to the traditional images of 'feminine' or 'masculine' subjects as well as the lack of mentoring programs engaging female students to study in science subjects, like energy. Women are also under-represented in the decision-making process in energy sections in developed countries. A 2010 survey of 464 large energy companies in Germany, Spain and Sweden found that 295 of them (64%) had no women at all on their boards or in their management groups. Similar situation is observed in the public energy sector, with 82.7% of high-level position occupied by men, though it is better in Nordic countries than in Mediterranean countries. Those gender gaps contribute to the "gender blindness" in the energy policies in developed countries.
England Caitlin Robinson (2019) conducted a study on gender and poverty in England. With the socio-spatial analysis, she argued that energy poverty could increase the gendered vulnerabilities. Five dimensions of gendered socio-spatial energy vulnerability are examined, including
Exclusion from a productive economy Unpaid reproductive, caring or domestic roles Coping and helping others to cope Susceptibility to physiological and mental health impacts Lack of social protection during a life course
The result indicated that energy poverty is connected with economic and social activities and health, but more complex effects of energy vulnerability and gender should be analyzed at the household level, since it is relatively individual.
Responses Some research indicates that investing in low-emission energy technologies can increase the accessibility to modern energy services, which will benefit the women living in energy poverty. The low-emission technologies are believed to be able to free poor women from fuel collection and drudgery, protect them from the air pollution caused by burning biomass, and enable them to have time for education and participating in public discussion etc.
Other research argues that merely technologies approach is not enough, and suggests engaging local women in the decision-making process for locally appropriate energy programs.Cecelski E. (2004) 'Re-thinking gender and energy: Old and new directions', in ENERGIA/EASE Discussion Paper, p. 41, 49
Pueyo & Maestre (2019) further studied whether men and women benefit differently in electrification. The results indicate that electrification benefits women in accessing paid works, but not as much as men. Women still have relatively lower quality works after electrification. Policies that address gender mainstreaming are suggested to consider both women's existing domestic work, and their accessibility to profitable activities, hence empowering them for long-term development.Pueyo, A. & Maestre, M. (2019). Linking energy access, gender and poverty: A review of the literature on productive uses of energy. Energy Research & Social Science, 53, 170–181.
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