In-home and out-of-home energy consumption by elderly and non-elderly households: a comparative analysis based on a copula model

This paper compares the energy consumption of elderly and non-elderly households, recognizing the ever-increasing importance of the aging population for energy policy. Decisions of the domestic (in-home) and transport (out-of-home) sectors at the household level are jointly incorporated by building a multivariate Hierarchical Archimedean Copula model with intra-sector and inter-sector dependencies. Data from a life-oriented behavioral survey in Japan are used, which includes 532 elderly households and 340 non-elderly households. A variety of life-related factors, together with built environment factors, are introduced into the above model. Modeling analysis results show that inter- and intra-sector dependencies are heterogeneous across households in terms of these factors. It is found that almost equal numbers of influential factors are sensitive and insensitive to age-based sample segmentation. Various similarities and dissimilarities across energy types between elderly and non-elderly households are revealed. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the results.