Three billion people around the world lack access to affordable and reliable clean cooking energy. The case for clean energy has largely been built around health and or environmental benefits, neglecting potentially sizeable benefit(s): when households have clean energy, they can save time and reduce drudgery. Clean energy can reduce poverty. But how large are time savings from the adoption and use of improved cookstoves (ICS)? Do these benefits accrue especially to women?

Gender equity is connected to modern energy services in many ways, but quantitative empirical work on these connections is limited. We examine the relationship between a multi-dimensional measure of women’s empowerment and access to improved cookstoves, clean fuels, and electricity. We use the World Bank Multi-Tier Framework survey datasets from seven countries that include almost 25 000 households in Africa and Asia.

The world remains far from meeting Sustainable Development Goals 5 (gender equality) and 7 (universal access to modern energy). Energy access may empower women even as empowered women are more likely to adopt and use modern energy services. Such bidirectional linkages are underappreciated in the empirical literature, which typically estimates unidirectional relationships based on simple binary indicators.