Cooking fuel choice in rural China: results from microdata

Bingdong Hou, Xin Tang, Chunbo Ma (), Li Liu, Yi-Ming Wei and Hua Liao ()

No 110, CEEP-BIT Working Papers from Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEP), Beijing Institute of Technology

Abstract: Unclean cooking fuel is widely used in the developing world, and it is the main indication of energy poverty in rural China. In this paper, we investigate the situation, transition, and determination of fuel choice in China's rural household cooking. Using the large scale micro-survey data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we find that there is a big gap in using commercial cooking fuels between rural and urban households: 60% of the rural households adopt traditional biomass resource as their main fuel for cooking in 2011, while this figure is less than 5% in the urban. We also identify a significant spatial divide in fuel choice: in southeastern coastal areas, about 40% of the rural households prefer solid fuels, while this figure jumps to over 80% in northeastern areas. The longitudinal data also reveal a significant transition from traditional to modern fuels from 2008 to 2012. Moreover, the distance to the most commonly used farmer's market, education background, coal price and female labor participation are all influential in determining the households' choices.

Keywords: cooking fuel; solid fuel; household; energy poverty; rural China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q40 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2018-01-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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