Energy Consumption and Human Well-Being: A Systematic Review

Gereon tho Pesch, Anna Kristín Einarsdóttir, Kevin Joseph Dillman and Jukka Heinonen ()
Additional contact information
Gereon tho Pesch: Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavík, Iceland
Anna Kristín Einarsdóttir: Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavík, Iceland
Kevin Joseph Dillman: Environment and Natural Resources, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavík, Iceland
Jukka Heinonen: Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavík, Iceland

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 18, 1-22

Abstract: Understanding the relationship between energy use and well-being is crucial for designing holistic energy policy. The latter has to both effectively mitigate climate change driven by current fossil-based energy systems as well as promote human development, which requires energy. While a significant body of research investigates this relationship, study designs differ significantly, so findings cannot be easily generalized. This machine learning-aided review provides an overview of the current state of the literature examining this relationship. We highlight and discuss methodological differences between the studies, including their perspective (top-down or bottom-up), spatial scope, and the respective energy and well-being indicators used. The review reveals that most research takes a top-down perspective, analyzing country-level data across multiple countries. These studies typically find a positive relationship between energy use and well-being, and most confirm the existence of a saturation effect. We reveal that countries in the Global South are underrepresented in current studies. Bottom-up studies focus on specific countries or country groups using household-level data, yielding more nuanced findings that can be further disaggregated by consumption domain. We find that energy and well-being indicators differ substantially across studies, yet the implications of this choice are not always sufficiently discussed. The review shows and discusses the current shift from production- to consumption-based energy indicators.

Keywords: energy; eudaimonic well-being; hedonic well-being; quality of life; top-down; bottom-up; consumption-based accounting; energy footprint (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: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/18/6494/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/18/6494/ (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:16:y:2023:i:18:p:6494-:d:1235966

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 ().