IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbecrv/v37y2023i2p283-304..html

Time for Clean Energy? Cleaner Fuels and Women’s Time in Home Production

Author

Listed:
  • Farzana Afridi
  • Sisir Debnath
  • Taryn Dinkelman
  • Komal Sareen

Abstract

In much of the developing world, cooking accounts for the largest share of women’s time in home production. Does relying on solid fuels drive this time burden? This study revisits a clean energy information experiment in rural India to assess the time savings’ potential of cleaner cooking technologies. Treatment villages were randomly assigned to receive information about negative health effects of cooking with solid fuels and about public subsidies for cleaner liquid petroleum gas (LPG). Time-use data indicate that primary cooks spend almost 24 hours cooking each week. Cleaner fuel use is correlated with about 140 minutes less cooking time each week. Yet households only reduce their weekly cooking time by about 35 minutes in response to the randomized clean energy information nudge. Factors limiting the impact of clean energy nudges on the choice of home production technologies and time use are discussed and an avenue for future research is suggested.

Suggested Citation

  • Farzana Afridi & Sisir Debnath & Taryn Dinkelman & Komal Sareen, 2023. "Time for Clean Energy? Cleaner Fuels and Women’s Time in Home Production," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 37(2), pages 283-304.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:37:y:2023:i:2:p:283-304.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhac031
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Jiahui & Liao, Hua & Zhang, Tong, 2024. "Empowering women substantially accelerates the household clean energy transition in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    2. Malhi, Fareena Noor & Hassan, Hashibul & Su, Qinghe, 2025. "Time-saving appliances and educational pitfalls: Evidence from Pakistan," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    3. Kouandou, Arouna, 2025. "The role of remittances in clean energy adoption: New household level insights from West Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    4. Zhu, Lin & Sheng, Yu & Liao, Hua & Blaschke, Maximilian J., 2025. "Enhancing clean cooking energy transition through living facility improvements: Experience from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    5. Su, Qinghe & Azam, Mehtabul, 2022. "Does Access to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Reduce Women Household Burden? Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 15842, IZA Network @ LISER.
    6. Zhu, Lin & Liao, Hua & Qiu, Tunye & Chen, Jiahui, 2026. "Public pension accelerates the household electrification: Experience from rural China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    7. Totouom, Armand, 2024. "Women's decision-making power and the adoption of liquefied petroleum gas for cooking in Cameroon," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:37:y:2023:i:2:p:283-304.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.