Raising the value of women’s time for a transition to clean fuels

A majority of women in rural India continue to use traditional fuels, adding to the time that they devote to domestic work. In this post, Farzana Afridi discusses findings from a survey in Madhya Pradesh, showing that switching to a clean fuel leads to time saving of about 20 minutes per day on average – but no corresponding increase in women’s workforce participation. She contends that raising the value of women’s work in the labour market can incentivise clean fuel adoption.

It is a well-known fact that women bear a large burden of not just using, but also collecting, polluting biomass and solid fuels such as wood and cow dung for cooking in rural contexts. For example, in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, women often spend up to 20 or more hours per week collecting biomass fuels. Women also spend a large amount of time cooking, as shown by data from the 2019 Time Use Survey (TUS) of India. A granular 24-hour time use survey of almost 3,000 primary cooks in households in rural Indore in Madhya Pradesh in 2018 (Afridi, Debnath, Dinkelman and Sareen 2023) similarly shows that of the 60 hours spent on domestic work by rural women per week, the majority (more than 40 hours) is spent on cooking and cleaning – almost four hours per day, on average (Figure 1), which is equivalent to a part-time job. Almost 75% of these women use firewood and cow dung for cooking, which not only makes cooking and cleaning more time-consuming but also exposes these women to cardiovascular and lung disease due to indoor smoke inhalation.

Figure 1. Women’s weekly time use

Notes: (i) Total time spent on domestic work per week is 60.62 hours. (ii) Size of the study sample is 2,942.

Source: Afridi et al. (2023).

Clean fuel and women’s time use

Can using a clean fuel – liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG – for cooking enhance the productivity of rural women, save time and also improve their health? In the same 2018 survey, the households’ primary cooks were asked what fuel they used for cooking the most recent meal, along with estimating the time taken to cook that entire meal for the family. Figure 2 compares the average time taken by the primary cook to prepare that meal in households that do not have LPG access (and therefore use solid fuels or the traditional chulha (earthen or brick stove) for cooking) with households that have LPG access. The findings reveal that it takes approximately 30 minutes less time to prepare a meal if the woman uses LPG rather than solid fuels for cooking.

Figure 2. Time taken to prepare meals, by type of cooking fuel

Notes:(i) Vertical error bars represent the 95% confidence interval. A 95% confidence interval indicates that, if the experiment were repeated over and over with new samples, 95% of the time the calculated confidence interval would contain the true effect. (ii) Size of the study sample is 2,942.

Source: Afridi et al. (2023).

Subsequently, when households are matched on similar characteristics, except access to LPG, the time use data show lower time spent on fuel collection and fuel making by women in households with LPG access relative to those who do not have an LPG account in rural Indore (Table 1). There is potentially a large reduction in time spent on dung collection, of almost 70 minutes per week, although the time savings in firewood collection is small. Hence, shifting to cleaner, less polluting fuels can indeed save women time spent on domestic work.

Table 1. Time spent on fuel collection and making

Minutes	Average treatment effect on treated (LPG versus non-LPG household)
Time spent in firewood collection (per week)	-7.26
Time spent in dung collection/making (per week)	-69.91***
Time spent on domestic work (per day)	-19.86**
Time spent on income generating work (per day)	-5.58
Time spent on leisure (per day)	20.72***

Notes: (i) Significant at *10%, **5% and ***1%. (ii) Size of the study sample is 2,650.

Source: Afridi et al. (2023).

Note, however, that there is no increase in time spent by these women on income-generating work (either work for pay, as a helper in household enterprise, or self-employment) in households with LPG access. But almost all of the daily time saved (about 20 minutes per day) is reallocated to more leisure.

Clean fuel and women’s work participation

While LPG can indeed improve women’s welfare, why do we not observe an increase in their labour force participation? A part of the answer may be attributable to differences in household incomes – households that use LPG may be economically better off. However, for the above comparison, households were matched on their assets and land holdings, as well as caste, to account for differences in income. What, then, is the reason for the released time not being used for work?

First, it is worth noting that fuel collection is an activity undertaken once a week or about four times a month by most rural households. Hence, the shift to LPG does not entail daily time savings. Second, the 20-30 minutes of daily time saved from cooking is not sufficient for women to step out of the home and take up a full-time job. Therefore, it is not surprising that our analysis suggests that the time saved is reallocated to leisure.

It is also important to consider how we value the approximately 30 minutes that women are saving daily? In rural areas, paid work available is primarily manual and low-skilled with low wages. The potential time saving of about 30 minutes is valued at only about 5% of rural monthly household income, given the rural daily wage for unskilled, manual labour (corresponding to these women’s level of education and lack of vocational or technical skills). Access to manufacturing or service sector jobs, which have higher returns and increase the opportunity cost of women’s domestic work are almost absent in most rural areas. Not only is the value of women's time relatively low, but there are also very few opportunities for flexible work for women in this context. The average female employment rate is only 15%, and primarily in agricultural self-employment. Hence, these households do not have a large enough incentive to save women’s time spent on cooking and fuel collection by shifting to regular usage of LPG.

Low usage of clean fuel, despite access

While households may have an LPG connection, the usage of LPG continues to be very low in rural India. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) programme – a scheme with the objective to make clean cooking fuel available to the rural households has undoubtedly been a huge success, and most rural households have access to LPG today. However, while these households might be using LPG sometimes, most of the time they are using solid fuels for cooking. Thus, they engage in mixed fuel cooking, as a result of which the usage of LPG cylinder refills is very low. While the maximum usage by a four-member household would be about 12 bottles/cylinders if the only fuel used by the household is LPG, the data show that the average annual usage is only about three LPG cylinder refills.

Clean cooking technology, whether LPG or induction, is unlikely to save large chunks of time in one go to allow women to work full-time and bring in substantive amounts of income to the household. The disincentive for adopting clean technology is heightened by the fact that typically it is men who make decisions about the purchase of LPG refills. Thus, the low bargaining power of these women further binds them to using dirty fuels.

Increasing the value of women’s time by raising the returns to their labour through higher wages and good jobs is essential, not only for increasing women’s engagement in the labour market but also for adoption of clean energy in India. Digital platforms that improve access to markets, coupled with micro-credit loans, are one possible solution to bringing decent work opportunities closer to rural women.