Exploring the nexus between households’ choice of cooking fuels, sanitation facilities and access to information in Pakistan

Abstract

Traditional biomass fuels are commonly used in developing countries including Pakistan due to easy availability, low cost and low awareness among the households. Understanding socioeconomic and environmental factors affecting the use of modern cooking fuels is important for promoting clean cooking fuels in developing countries. Using PSLMS data collected from all four provinces of Pakistan for the years 2004–05 and 2014–15, the present study is designed to find out the determinants of using clean cooking fuels. A discrete choice model empirically is employed to analyze whether sanitation facilities and access to information are more likely to influence the use of clean cooking fuels. Our results show that households with improved sanitation are more probable to invest in clean cooking fuels in 2004–05 and such households are less likely to use clean cooking fuels in 2014–15, mainly due to infrastructure damages resulting from natural disasters. The households with unimproved sanitation are highly likely to use traditional biomass fuels for cooking. In addition to this, households’ wealth, gender, education, employment status, access to market and information and location factors influence probability of using clean cooking fuels. The study concludes that policymakers should take due consideration of geographical, social and environmental dynamics for promoting the use of clean cooking fuels.