Abstract
This paper examines the role of caste, tribe, and religion in determining energy inequality in India. We provide evidence by using the National Sample Survey Organisation data from the 68th round (2011–12) of 87,753 households. We estimate the inequalities in access to Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) and electricity usage by the households belonging to the three major disadvantaged groups in India, viz., the scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes, and the Muslims. The results of our empirical analysis suggest that, after controlling for the determinants which impinge on the households’ microeconomic demand and regional supply characteristics, the households belonging to the scheduled tribe and scheduled caste communities do have significantly poorer access to LPG and electricity usage as compared to the upper caste households. The decomposition analysis of average differences in the predicted outcomes shows that it is the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households who would appear to face most discrimination. The Muslim households too face significant inequality in accessing LPG. Policy implications of the findings are considered.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 44-53 |
| Journal | Energy for Sustainable Development |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue number | C |
| Early online date | 7 Nov 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2018 |
Keywords
- Cooking fuel
- Electricity
- Inequality
- Discrimination
Access to Document
- Manuscript_RandR
Copyright © 2017, International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Inc. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2017.09.009