A new study published in World Development examines how programmes aimed at strengthening women’s empowerment can influence household decisions about energy use — particularly the adoption of cleaner cooking fuels.
Across many low- and middle-income countries, households continue to rely on traditional biomass fuels such as wood or dung for cooking. These fuels generate high levels of indoor air pollution and are linked to major health risks, especially for women and children. Understanding what drives households to adopt cleaner alternatives, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), is therefore an important question for both public health and development policy.
The study evaluates the impact of SABLA, a large-scale multidimensional empowerment programme for adolescent girls in India, with over 10 million beneficiaries annually (until 2016). By combining programme evaluation methods with household survey data, the researchers investigate whether empowering girls and young women can influence broader household decisions — including those related to cooking fuel use post marriage.
The findings suggest that programmes designed to strengthen women’s capabilities, social position, and health awareness can have spillover effects on household behaviour, increasing the adoption of cleaner cooking fuels. This result was primarily driven by improved health behaviours of women in the context of their children’s as well as their own health. The study highlights how gender-focused policies may also generate additional benefits for health, environmental sustainability, and household wellbeing.
Dr. Prashant Poddar, an LCDS-affiliated postdoctoral researcher and co-author of the study, explains: “Household energy decisions are not determined by income and infrastructure alone. Who participates in decision-making also matters. Empowering women and girls can influence these choices in ways that improve both health and wellbeing.”
By linking women’s empowerment programmes to household energy transitions, the research contributes to a growing body of evidence showing that gender equality initiatives can have wide-ranging impacts beyond their immediate policy goals. This study is a follow-up to the authors’ earlier work, published in Economic Development and Cultural Change, that showed the long-term impacts of the SABLA programme in reducing intimate partner violence.
Read the article:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X26000446
and see Dr. Poddar's earlier work on the SABLA program here:
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721281
