Abstract
Falling real incomes, rising utility prices and the historically poor thermal quality of the housing stock are some of the main factors that have driven the rise of systemic injustices surrounding energy poverty in the post-communist states of Eastern and Central Europe (ECE). We undertake a socio-spatial and temporal assessment of energy poverty in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, using Household Budget Survey micro-data and the consolidated national results of the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions. Our results indicate that increases in domestic energy prices and expenditures during the last decade have not been offset by purchasing power gains or energy efficiency improvements, resulting in sustained and growing levels of energy poverty. Capital city regions have fared better than rural areas even if traditional macroeconomic performance indicators do not easily match domestic energy deprivation metrics. We thus question policy approaches that favour income-based solutions and fail to recognise housing- and demography-related vulnerabilities.
Highlights
It is well known that processes of post-communist economic and political transformation have led to increased levels of social inequality, injustice and poverty throughout the states of Eastern and Central Europe (ECE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU)
The non-conformity of energy poverty with conventional statistical indicators has influenced the investigations and outcomes associated with the article itself: our analyses have been highly inferential and indirect in character due to the lack of customised data, even if we have utilised sources of information that have rarely been employed towards the study of inadequate energy services in the home
The values of energy poverty-relevant indicators for all three countries are much higher than equivalent measures for Western European or North American countries – reflecting a pattern that is present in the ECE region as a whole
Summary
It is well known that processes of post-communist economic and political transformation have led to increased levels of social inequality, injustice and poverty throughout the states of Eastern and Central Europe (ECE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU). There is evidence to suggest that the inhabitants of detached individual homes face elevated levels of vulnerability to domestic energy deprivation; 12% of Czech and 18% of all Polish households in this category were classified as LIHC in 2011, while 18% and 26%, respectively, had energy burdens above 20% in the same year.5 This may be attributed to the relative absence of state or private sector support for energy efficiency improvements in this part of the dwelling stock; in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland alike, government-led housing improvement programmes have principally been targeted towards the retrofit of apartment buildings (Bouzarovski, 2015). The reviewed evidence suggests that the demand-side fuel mix and the condition of the housing stock have combined with existing patterns of deprivation to produce new spatial distributions of energy poverty at the sub-national level
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