Does off-farm work reduce energy poverty? Evidence from rural China

Energy poverty is a crucial challenge for poverty alleviation in rural China. However, in recent years, off-farm work has begun to play an increasingly important role in improving the well-being of rural households. Considering the accessibility and affordability of energy consumption, this study explored the impacts of off-farm work on energy poverty by multidimensional method on the latest micro-dataset containing 5029 observations of rural households in 2018. The empirical results indicated that off-farm work has a negative effect on households' energy poverty in rural China. The findings showed that off farm work improves rural households' energy poverty situation by increasing their total income in the mechanism analysis. Moreover, rural households' heterogeneity in the farm work participation, the level of medical expenditure burden and the distances to the closest city revealed that the policymakers should construct diversified policies to solve the energy poverty problem. The evidence-based results in our research could contribute to understanding the critical role of off-farm work in reducing the energy poverty situation in rural areas. (C) 2021 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.