Women's decision-making power and the adoption of liquefied petroleum gas for cooking in Cameroon

Abstract

The low-level of women's decision-making power could be the determining cause of the minimal adoption of clean cooking fuel in Africa, needing deep exploration. This study surveys the gendered nature of household adoption of liquefied petroleum gas for cooking in Cameroon. Specifically, it assesses the effect of women's decision-making power in the household on LPG adoption. Using data from the 2018 Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey, we estimated several standard and recursive bivariate probit models. We accounted for the endogeneity of women's autonomy in the LPG adoption model by using women's control over land as an instrument. Our results show that women's participation in household decisions increases the household probability of adopting LPG for cooking. In addition, women's land rights increase women's final say on large household purchases. Therefore, policies enhancing land rights equity have the potential to increase women's decision-making power, therefore increasing adoption of LPG.