Quantifying relation between energy inaccessibility and its impacts on rural women in terms of life quality
Student name: Ms Kaveri Gogoi
Guide: Dr Papiya Guha Mazumdar
Year of completion: 2014
Host Organisation: Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, New Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Deepak Gupta
Abstract: India today is faced with a huge energy shortage, the brunt of which is mostly faced by the
rural population of India. Apart from the existence of such vertical divides in terms of ruralurban
areas, there are horizontal divisions in the form of gender differentiations in each
vertical cluster. The manner in which women are affected by lack of energy access is
different from men. This study establishes a quantitative relation highlighting the fact that
women with access to clean energy and environment lead a good quality life in terms of
health and drudgery in rural India. Child‟s wellbeing being a critical indicator of mother‟s
wellbeing, the former‟s health and fulfilment of early childcare needs are taken as proxy for
women‟s life quality. The results show that child‟s life quality is highly affected by various
socio-economic indicators which influence one‟s choice of energy and energy environment.
These indicators are mostly related to women‟s status in society. Along with socio-economic
indicators, the kind of energy used and the environment have also shown significant results.
Keywords: Energy Access, Gender, Health, Logit regression, socio-economic factors.
