The general findings from the national time-use surveys are also confirmed in smaller case studies: both women and men are involved in fuelwood collection but to varying degrees (Cooke et al, 2008). One of these studies, Köhlin (1998) shows that the labor allocation between men and women, and between sources of fuel, is responsive to the relative shadow wages. Although cultural norms are important for intra-household labor allocation, as indicated by e.g. significant caste dummies in choice of fuel source, it is apparent that the opportunity cost of women‘s time is also important.

Below, we take up the more interesting question of how the relative, and absolute, burden for women changes with changing circumstances, and especially donor-funded interventions.

# **_1.2.3 Technology uptake and electricity connections_**

# **The impact of interventions designed to promote the use of new cooking technology and electricity in homes depends on household decision-making, and in particular, how women’s preferences, opportunity cost of time, and welfare are reflected in those decisions.  Good project design requires context-specific understanding of how these household decisions are made.**

The ultimate impact of many interventions in the energy sector are mediated by household decisions about (i) the type of cooking fuel and technology to employ, and (ii) whether and how to use electricity in the home.<sup>9</sup> This raises the question of whether and how women‘s preferences and welfare are reflected in these household level decisions. It is commonly argued that because women have lower status and lower perceived opportunity cost of time, their preferences and their welfare carry less weight in these household decisions. For example, male household heads who control cash accounts may decide which appliances to buy, without considering the preferences or well-being of the women in the household. Social norms that place a low value on women are often internalized so that, even if women are the decision makers, they afford low priority to new cooking technologies that might benefit them. In addition, cultural constraints on women‘s paid work may deter households from switching from energy that requires female labor (e.g., fuelwood) to purchased energy (e.g., LPG); this is essentially a labor market imperfection that constrains welfare maximization. Such cultural constraints could also lead to vicious cycles where girls are expected to contribute to collection of fuel and water, thus spending less time in school, becoming less attractive to the labor market and with the resulting lower opportunity cost of time having to resort to collection activities.

# **_1.2.4 Technology uptake and female headship_**

There are several reasons to expect that the determinants and rates of adoption of new cooking technology and electricity may be different for female-headed vs. male headed households: (i) in some places, female-headed households are more likely to be poor and thus less able to afford the up-front cost of new stoves or electricity connections, (ii) in many places, the legal and cultural constraints on women may also place households that they head at a disadvantage (limiting their opportunities even conditional on household income), and (iii) in general, we would expect decisions by female heads of households to more closely reflect women‘s preferences, welfare, and opportunity cost of time, raising the possibility that female-headed households may be more responsive to interventions to improve access or reduce barriers to new cooking technology and electricity.

> 9 We note that there are energy interventions whose welfare impacts depend on individual decisions, although these are also often constrained by intra-household decision-making dynamics and compounded by institutional constraints operating at the community level or higher.  For example, the welfare impact of providing electricity to communities depends not only on household decisions to connect to the grid but also on individual use of public services (health clinics, schools, street lighting), which may be affected by cultural expectations of women and other institutional factors.  And some interventions, such as multi-function platforms, are designed to involve individuals (rather than households) via associations, sometimes targeted towards women.

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