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Getting warmer: fuel poverty, objective and subjective health and well-being

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  • Davillas, Apostolos
  • Burlinson, Andrew
  • Liu, Hui-Hsuan

Abstract

This paper uses data from Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study to explore the association between fuel poverty and a set of well-being outcomes: life-satisfaction, self-reported health measures and more objectively measured biomarker data. Over and above the conventional income–fuel cost indicators, we also use more proximal heating deprivation indicators. We create and draw upon a set of composite indicators that concomitantly capture (the lack of) affordability and thermal comfort. Depending on which fuel deprivation indicator is used, we find heterogeneous associations between fuel poverty and our well-being outcomes. Employing combined fuel deprivation indicators, which takes into account the income–fuel cost balance and more proximal perceptions of heating adequacy, reveals the presence of more pronounced associations with life satisfaction and fibrinogen, one of our biological health measures. The presence of these strong associations would have been less pronounced or masked when using separately each of the components of our composite fuel deprivation indicators as well as in the case of self-reported generic measures of physical health. Lifestyle and chronic health conditions plays a limited role in attenuating our results, while material deprivation partially, but not fully, attenuates our associations between fuel deprivation and well-being. These results remain robust when bounding analysis is employed to test the potential confounding role of unobservables. Our analysis suggests that composite fuel deprivation indicators may be useful energy policy instruments for uncovering the underlining mechanism via which fuel poverty may get “under the skin”.

Suggested Citation

  • Davillas, Apostolos & Burlinson, Andrew & Liu, Hui-Hsuan, 2021. "Getting warmer: fuel poverty, objective and subjective health and well-being," GLO Discussion Paper Series 903, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:903
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    Cited by:

    1. Huang, Luling & Nock, Destenie & Cong, Shuchen & Qiu, Yueming (Lucy), 2023. "Inequalities across cooling and heating in households: Energy equity gaps," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    2. Al Kez, Dlzar & Foley, Aoife & Abdul, Zrar Khald & Del Rio, Dylan Furszyfer, 2024. "Energy poverty prediction in the United Kingdom: A machine learning approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    3. Lina Volodzkiene & Dalia Streimikiene, 2023. "Energy Inequality Indicators: A Comprehensive Review for Exploring Ways to Reduce Inequality," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-28, August.
    4. Antunes, Micaela & Teotónio, Carla & Quintal, Carlota & Martins, Rita, 2023. "Energy affordability across and within 26 European countries: Insights into the prevalence and depth of problems using microeconomic data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    5. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Asante, Augustine, 2023. "Neighbourhood crime and obesity: Longitudinal evidence from Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 337(C).
    6. Burlinson, Andrew & Davillas, Apostolos & Giulietti, Monica & Price, Catherine Waddams, 2024. "Household energy price resilience in the face of gas and electricity market crises," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    7. Prakash, Kushneel & Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell, 2022. "Are you puffing your Children's future away? Energy poverty and childhood exposure to passive smoking," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    8. Shapira, Stav & Teschner, Naama, 2023. "No heat, no eat: (Dis)entangling insecurities and their implications for health and well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 336(C).
    9. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell, 2022. "Protestantism and energy poverty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    10. Sara Casagrande & Bruno Dallago, 2022. "To Be, or Not to Be: The Role of Self-Perception in European Countries’ Performance Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-23, October.
    11. He, Pan & Lovo, Stefania & Veronesi, Marcella, 2022. "Social networks and renewable energy technology adoption: Empirical evidence from biogas adoption in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    12. Paul Fisher & Omar Hussein, 2023. "Understanding Society: the income data," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 377-397, December.
    13. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell, 2022. "Local area crime and energy poverty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    14. Haverkamp, Thilo K.G. & Welsch, Heinz & Ziegler, Andreas, 2023. "The relationship between climate protection activities, economic preferences, and life satisfaction: Empirical evidence for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fuel poverty; biomarkers; health; well-being;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy

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