When cooking meets confucianism: Exploring the role of traditional culture in cooking energy poverty

Energy poverty is widespread in both developed and developing countries and is a new type of poverty. Based on Confucian culture, this paper explains the intrinsic causes of household energy poverty in China from the perspective of the relative status of men and women. Empirically, this paper matches two micro databases, China Family Panel Studies and Chinese General Social Survey, with the data of prefecture-level Confucian culture and identifies the effect of Confucian culture on energy poverty using an instrumental variable method. The results of this paper show that the stronger the Confucian culture is, the greater the probability of households falling into energy poverty. In mechanistic analysis, It is found that when influenced by Confucian culture, social perceptions tend to be unfair to women, and the possibility of falling into energy poverty is greater. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis shows that the association of Confucian culture with household energy poverty is stronger in households with lower income levels and rural areas. Based on a cultural perspective, this study elaborates on the factors inherently influencing the occurrence of energy poverty and provides policy implications.