Households’ Energy Choices in Rural Pakistan

Muhammad Ahmar, Fahad Ali, Yuexiang Jiang, Mamdooh Alwetaishi and Sherif S. M. Ghoneim
Additional contact information
Muhammad Ahmar: College of Economics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Fahad Ali: School of Finance, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou 310058, China
Yuexiang Jiang: College of Economics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Mamdooh Alwetaishi: Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia
Sherif S. M. Ghoneim: Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-23

Abstract: In the wake of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals—zero hunger and affordable modern/clean energy for all—many developing countries have taken serious steps in recent years to increase clean energy access for the rural population. The government of Pakistan has similarly made numerous efforts to promote the use of clean energy sources in the rural areas of the country. Therefore, this study examines rural households’ energy choices for cooking and lighting in Pakistan. In doing so, a comprehensive dataset is collected from three different districts of Pakistan between 2020 and 2021, and multivariate probit (MVP) model and Chi-square tests are employed. The Chi-square results indicate that the age, education level, and occupation of the household-head; household size and income; distance to market and wood source; and biogas system ownership are the significant factors affecting cooking choices. The MVP results show that an increase in education level, school-going children, access to credit facilities, and gender (female) are the key positive factors, whereas an increase in the distance to nearest market/road, household size, and age are the factors that negatively affect the likelihood of using clean energy sources for lighting. While comparing the propensity to use modern/clean energy fuels across the three districts, infrastructural development and literacy rate were found to be crucial factors.

Keywords: household energy choices; cooking fuel choice; lighting fuel choice; clean energy; modern energy needs; renewable energy; rural development; Pakistan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/9/3149/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/9/3149/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:9:p:3149-:d:802141

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().