Fuel choices for cooking and heating and gender empowerment: Implications for promoting gender equality and sustainable rural development

This study evaluates the impact of fuel choices for cooking and heating on gender empowerment using rural household survey data from China. We investigate rural households' fuel-stacking behaviors by classifying fuels into non-clean, clean, and mixed categories and distinguish an incomplete energy transition (i.e. switching from non-clean fuels to mixed fuels) from a complete energy transition (i.e. switching from non-clean to clean fuels). The decision-making power of men and women measures gender empowerment. We use the multinomial endogenous switching regression model to address the endogeneity issue associated with rural households' fuel choices. The results show that incomplete and complete energy transitions for heating significantly increase men's decision-making power, while the same transitions for cooking have no significant impact. Incomplete and complete energy transitions for cooking significantly empower rural women, while a complete energy transition for heating also significantly empowers women. These findings suggest that promoting a complete energy transition supports broader rural development by empowering women to participate more actively in household decision-making. We also find that a complete energy transition for cooking and heating reduces the decision-making power gap between men and women more than an incomplete one, highlighting that a complete energy transition contributes more to gender equality. Therefore, fostering complete energy transitions is essential for closing gender disparities and establishing a foundation for sustainable rural development through enhanced female empowerment.