UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series
Why Rural Rich Remain Energy Poor
Bilal Mirza & René Kemp #2009-024The paper tries to explore the rationale behind the complexities of
energy poverty among different income groups in rural communities. We
attempted to understand why rural rich, despite their relatively high
purchasing power use energy sources which tend to categorize them as
energy poor. Using Energy Poverty Survey (EPS) – a dataset of more than
600 rural households from 27 different rural communities of Punjab,
Pakistan, we presented energy access situation in rural households among
different income groups. Subsequently, we used logit to assess access
factors which could impact the energy source choices among different
income groups. The insignificance of household income for traditional
biomass use and high significance of community remoteness indicators
imply that households give high importance on the proximity of energy
sources available to them and, in many cases, will prefer to be in the
state of energy poor, than to use modern energy source like LPG.
Keywords: energy poverty, rural rich and poor, rural communities,
Punjab, Pakistan, fuelwood, animal waste, plant waste, kerosene, liquid
petroleum gas
JEL: Q01, Q42, I32
UNU-MERIT Working Papers
ISSN 1871-9872
Download the working paper (PDF)
