Internal Migration and Energy Poverty

This paper presents a first analysis of the relationship between rural-urban migration and energy poverty in South Africa, and to the authors' knowledge in Africa, using a nationally representative panel dataset. Using a dynamic difference in differences approach, energy poverty changes for both migrants and non-migrants are tracked over a ten-year period from 2008 to 2017. On average, moving to urban areas results in reductions in energy poverty for migrants themselves, with especially dramatic reductions in the use of traditional cooking fuels. Roughly one in five new urban arrivals move into informal shack dwellings where initial gains in energy access are negligible, but even for these migrants, the gains from migration grow over time. Effects on households, differences between male and female migrants, and other amenitities are also explored.