Energy Poverty and Women's Health: Evidence From Burkina Faso

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Résumé

Although reducing energy poverty has become a priority for the international community, the link between energy poverty and women's health has received little attention despite its potential. Using data from the Continuous Multisectoral Survey (EMC), this article analyses the effect of energy poverty on women's health within a multidimensional framework. Sadath and Archarya's approach was used to calculate the multidimensional energy poverty index. An instrumental variable strategy was implemented to control for endogeneity bias arising from the dual causality between energy poverty and health. The results indicate that nearly 92% of households in Burkina Faso are in a situation of multidimensional energy poverty. Substantial differences between the different regions of the country in terms of multidimensional energy poverty were also observed. The results also show that multidimensional energy poverty has a negative impact on women's health. This result is consistent with all the regression models used. Incentive policies, such as subsidising liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) appliances, could help to reduce energy poverty.

Mots-clés

healthstatus|household|instrumentalvariables|multidimensionalenergypoverty