Household dynamics and fuelwood consumption in developing countries: a cross-national analysis

Previous research has suggested a link between household dynamics (i.e., average household size and number of households) and environmental impacts at the national level. Building on this work, we empirically test the relationship between household dynamics and fuelwood consumption, which has been i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Population and environment 2012-06, Vol.33 (4), p.365-378
Main Authors: Knight, Kyle W., Rosa, Eugene A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
anthropogenic factors
Biodiversity
Biological diversity
Case studies
Comparative analysis
Conservation
Consumption
Cross-national analysis
Deforestation
Demography
Developing Countries
Ecological footprint
Ecological sustainability
Ecology
Economic Development
Economic theory
Economics
Emissions
Energy
Energy consumption
Energy Development
Energy economics
Energy resources
Environment
Environmental impact
Fertility
Fuels
Greenhouse gases
Household consumption
Household size
Households
LDCs
Pandas
Per capita
Population
Population Economics
Population growth
Population size
Public Health
RESEARCH BRIEF
Social Sciences
Sociology
Studies
Sustainable consumption
Threat
Tradition
Trends
Urbanization
Wood
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Summary:Previous research has suggested a link between household dynamics (i.e., average household size and number of households) and environmental impacts at the national level. Building on this work, we empirically test the relationship between household dynamics and fuelwood consumption, which has been implicated in anthropogenic threats to biodiversity. We focus our analysis on developing countries (where fuelwood is an important energy source). Our results show that nations with smaller average households consume more fuelwood per capita. This finding indicates that the household economies of scale are, indeed, associated with the consumption of fuelwood. In addition, we found that number of households is a better predictor of total fuelwood consumption than average household size suggesting a greater relative contribution to consumption levels. Thus, insofar as declining average household sizes result in increased number of households and higher per capita consumption, this trend may be a signal of serious threats to biodiversity and resource conservation. We also found further support for the "energy ladder" hypothesis that economic development reduces demand for traditional fuels.
ISSN:0199-0039
1573-7810
DOI:10.1007/s11111-011-0151-3