Does attending in social pension program promotes household energy transition? Evidence from ethnical minority regions of rural China

Abstract

It is of great significance to promote rural household energy transition to improve residents' welfare and sustainable economic development. However, economic poverty and income uncertainty hinder households' transition to cleaner energy. The initiation of social pension plays a crucial role in combating income shock and promoting household consumption. In contrast, there is little literature on the relationship between social pension and household energy consumption. This article addresses this question by exploring the role of social pension in promoting household energy transition. We adopt the Chinese Household Ethnicity Survey (CHES, 2013) and apply the control function approach to test for the causal effects of social pension in promoting household energy transition. Our empirical results reveal that social pension reduces rural residents' adoption of solid fuels. The reduction effect of social pension on household solid fuel use will be significantly enhanced with the increase in family members participating in the social pension program. We also find that household members with religious faiths and the number of ethnic minorities within a family could strengthen the negative effect of social pension on household solid fuel use. Moreover, we identify intra-household transfer and labour mobility within the family as channels. Our findings suggest that expanding access to social pension would have considerable benefits in promoting household energy transition.