Intersectional aspects of energy poverty in India

Energy poverty indicates difficulty in securing levels of decent living energy services. This study examines the intersectional dimensions of energy poverty, with a focus on social class, geography, income, education and gender. Using a nationally representative household survey from India, it demonstrates how overlapping inequities along these dimensions leads to significant disparities in reliable access, affordable use and clean and efficient energy service delivery. Additionally, it finds that these effects differ by the type of energy service as well the dimensions of energy poverty. A counterintuitive finding emerges: urban poor households face the highest cooking fuel affordability burden due to lack of biomass fallback options. This pattern of "reverse intersectionality," where adding rural location to a deprivation profile reduces affordability pressure through access to non-market fuel sources, challenges standard assumptions of compounding harm. Such systemic inequities extend beyond income poverty and disproportionately affect households with multiple deprivations, whereas households without any of the underlying structural inequities are always considerably better off than the national average. No prior empirical work examines whether intersectional effects vary across energy poverty dimensions or fuel types, a gap with significant implications for measurement and targeting. These findings have important implications for policy, as they suggest that interventions aimed at reducing energy poverty in India must take into account the intersecting identities and experiences of different social groups, as well as the multidimensional nature of energy poverty beyond access alone. Targeted policies and programs that address the specific barriers faced by disadvantaged communities are suggested in order to promote greater energy access and equity in India.