Energy poverty and the characteristics of energy-poor households in Turkey

Abstract

Energy poverty is an important and distinct part of the multi-dimensional poverty concept and it is a growing concern in the international arena. There are many well-documented country-specific studies on the concept of energy poverty. The aim of this thesis is to constitute a comprehensive and detailed energy poverty analysis for Turkey, for the first time, focused on both "the estimation of the extent of energy poverty with each available indicator in the literature for Turkey" and "the characterization of energy-poor households using econometric analysis". The thesis is constructed in two parts: Part 1 includes the calculation of the rates of energy poverty in Turkey using the four expenditure-based and four consensual-based indicators and analyses related to this calculation. Part 2 includes different logit models to find the most influential demographic, socioeconomic, and dwelling characteristics of the energy-poor households in Turkey, and descriptive statistics to see the change of these characteristics over the years. Data analysis indicates that energy poverty rates for Turkey have decreased from 2003 to 2018 for all indicators. Regarding the most influential demographic, socioeconomic, and dwelling characteristics of the energy-poor households; having a household head who is unemployed or inactive, and with a low educational level; living in a detached house, and being a tenant seems to be the common key factors explaining the higher probability of a household being energy-poor.