"Stop the killer in the kitchen": inter-linkages between women’s intrahousehold bargaining power and clean fuel adoption in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from Senegal

Soazic Elise Wang Sonne, UNU-MERIT

Fuel switching models to understand the high dependency of Sub Saharan African households on traditional fuels have been blind beneath and above the household level, undermining the role played by intra-household bargaining and households’ embeddedness in their external environment (informal institutions). This project suggests that intra-household bargaining and informal institutions also affect clean fuels' adoption. It bridges the gap by assessing not just the solely one way effect of women’s bargaining power on clean fuel adoption but also the reverse effect of the type of fuel used on women's bargaining power. Using a Simultaneous Equation Model, We found that while some socio-economic characteristics matter (household size, land and house ownership, wealth, earnings, religion, type of residence, education); an increase of woman’s intrahousehold bargaining power leads to an increase of clean fuel adoption. Reversely, households using a clean fuel are the ones with women having a higher level of bargaining power.