17.6 Gender And Energy Access

Understanding Gender And Energy Access

Energy access may sound gender neutral, but in reality women, men, and gender diverse people often experience energy systems very differently. In many regions, especially in low income and rural areas, gender roles, responsibilities, and power relations shape who has access to modern energy, who benefits from it, and who makes decisions about it. Understanding these differences is essential if energy projects are to be fair, effective, and sustainable.

Gender and energy access is not only about adding women as users or employees. It is about recognizing that social norms influence time use, income, mobility, safety, and voice in decision making, and that these factors in turn influence how people can use and benefit from energy. When gender aspects are ignored, energy projects can unintentionally reinforce existing inequalities. When they are considered carefully, energy can become a powerful tool for empowerment and development.

Everyday Gender Roles And Energy Needs

In many societies, women and girls are primarily responsible for household tasks such as cooking, collecting water, caring for children and the sick, and cleaning. Men are more often engaged in income earning activities outside the home, in transport, or in operating machinery. These patterns are not universal, but they are common enough that they strongly influence energy needs.

Because of these roles, women often have a greater need for clean cooking technologies, reliable lighting in and around the home, and energy for water pumping and food processing. Men may give more importance to energy for agricultural machinery, workshop tools, or phone charging for business. If planners do not ask both women and men about their needs, energy systems may be designed in a way that serves only a narrow set of priorities.

Another important aspect is time. Women and girls can spend hours per day collecting fuelwood or other traditional fuels. Access to modern energy for cooking and for productive appliances can significantly reduce this time burden. If the saved time is used for education, rest, or income generating activities, the benefits can be very large. If, however, norms expect women simply to do more unpaid work, energy access will not automatically lead to empowerment.

Health, Safety, And Gendered Impacts Of Traditional Energy

In households that rely on traditional biomass such as wood, charcoal, or dung for cooking, women and small children are usually the most exposed to indoor air pollution. Cooking over open fires in poorly ventilated spaces can lead to respiratory diseases, eye problems, and other health issues. Men may experience these impacts to a lesser degree if they spend more time outside the home.

Fuel collection also has gender specific risks. Women and girls who walk long distances to gather wood or other fuels can face physical strain and a risk of harassment or violence, especially when they move through isolated areas. These risks are rarely experienced in the same way by men and boys.

Affordable and reliable access to clean cooking solutions, such as improved biomass stoves, liquefied petroleum gas, biogas, or electric cooking, can therefore have particularly strong benefits for women’s health and safety. Similarly, energy for street lighting and lighting around homes and community facilities can influence women’s sense of security when moving at night, for example when going to the market, clinic, or community meetings.

Gender, Education, And Energy Access

Energy access affects education in gendered ways. Poor lighting in homes means children may struggle to study after dark. In many contexts, girls are more likely to be taken out of school to help with fuel collection, water fetching, or domestic work that is difficult without adequate energy. When improved energy access reduces the time needed for these tasks, it can reduce one barrier to girls’ schooling.

Electricity in schools can improve learning environments through lighting, fans or heating, access to computers, and digital learning tools. It can also support sanitation and hygiene facilities, which are especially important for girls as they reach puberty. For example, energy to pump water or power lighting for toilets can affect whether girls feel comfortable attending school during menstruation.

Teachers, who are often male in some regions and female in others, also have different experiences of energy access. Where female teachers are in short supply, a lack of energy and related services in rural areas can make postings less attractive. Improved energy access in off grid or remote communities can therefore play a role in attracting and retaining teachers of all genders.

Economic Opportunities And Gendered Use Of Productive Energy

Energy access can open up new economic opportunities, but benefits do not automatically reach everyone equally. Men often have better access to land, credit, training, and markets. This means that when electricity arrives, men may be better positioned to start or expand businesses that use energy intensive equipment, such as mills, carpentry workshops, irrigation pumps, or welding shops.

Women are frequently active in smaller scale or home based enterprises such as food processing, small retail, tailoring, or handicrafts. These activities can benefit greatly from energy for appliances like grinders, mixers, refrigerators, sewing machines, and mobile charging. However, social norms may limit women’s control over income, their mobility to access training or markets, and their ability to obtain loans to buy equipment.

If energy programs only focus on connecting households or on large commercial users, the specific needs and constraints of women entrepreneurs may be overlooked. Intentional efforts to pair energy access with training, finance, and market support targeted at women can help close this gap. In many successful rural electrification projects, women’s groups have played a central role in identifying which productive uses of energy make sense for local livelihoods.

Decision Making, Ownership, And Voice In Energy Systems

Control over energy infrastructure and decisions about energy services are also shaped by gender. In many households, men control major financial decisions, including whether to invest in solar home systems, efficient stoves, or grid connections. Even if women are the primary users of certain energy technologies, they may have little say in which options are chosen or how they are used.

At the community level, women are often underrepresented in energy committees, cooperatives, or user associations. Meeting times and locations may clash with women’s domestic responsibilities or safety concerns. When women are not present or do not feel able to speak up, their priorities, such as clean cooking, safe lighting, or energy for health services, may receive less attention than they deserve.

Ownership structures also matter. Community energy projects that enable collective or individual ownership can create new opportunities for women to become co owners or shareholders. However, if membership criteria are tied to land titles or other assets that women typically lack, these opportunities may remain closed. Gender sensitive rules about membership and voting rights can make community energy structures more inclusive.

Women’s Roles In Energy Supply Chains

Gender differences also appear along energy supply chains, from manufacturing and distribution to installation, operation, and maintenance. Renewable energy sectors have often been dominated by men, especially in technical and leadership roles. Women are more likely to be found in administrative or lower paid positions. This imbalance can affect the design and delivery of products and services.

In off grid renewable energy markets, women have successfully worked as sales agents, technicians, and entrepreneurs. For instance, women technicians trained to install and maintain solar home systems can increase trust and comfort among female customers and help design solutions that respond to daily household realities. Women led businesses in clean cooking or solar products can better reach women customers who may have limited mobility or who prefer to interact with other women.

However, women may face multiple barriers to entering these roles, including limited access to education in science and engineering, norms that discourage women from technical work, and safety concerns about traveling to remote locations. Addressing these barriers requires training programs, mentorship, flexible working conditions, and sometimes targeted policies by companies and governments.

Intersectionality: Gender, Poverty, And Other Inequalities

Gender does not exist in isolation. Differences in income, age, ethnicity, disability, marital status, and location all intersect with gender to shape energy access. Poor women in remote rural areas often face the most severe energy poverty, while wealthier urban women may have good formal connections but still lack control over energy related decisions.

Similarly, women who are heads of households, widows, or migrants may have particular difficulties accessing credit, land, or identification documents required for electricity connections or appliance purchase schemes. People with disabilities of any gender may face physical barriers to using energy services, such as inaccessible infrastructure, and may need specific adaptations.

Recognizing intersectionality helps project designers avoid treating all women as a single group with identical needs and constraints. Instead, it encourages consultation with diverse groups and a careful look at how different forms of disadvantage overlap.

Gender Sensitive Design Of Energy Access Projects

To make energy access more equitable, projects can integrate gender considerations from the earliest stages. This starts with collecting sex disaggregated data, that is, data that distinguishes between women and men, and often other relevant categories, during needs assessments. Without this, it is difficult to see who benefits and who is left out.

Meaningful participation of women and men in planning processes is crucial. This may involve holding separate focus group discussions, scheduling meetings at times and locations that are accessible for women, providing child care during meetings, and using communication methods that suit people with different literacy levels. When women feel safe and respected, they can share insights about cooking, water collection, small businesses, and community services that men may not be aware of.

Project design can also include specific measures to support women’s access and control. Examples include flexible payment schemes for low income households, targeted support for women led enterprises that can use energy productively, and training for both women and men on technical and financial aspects of new technologies. Energy projects can also work with local leaders to challenge restrictive norms that prevent women from attending meetings or handling money.

Women’s Empowerment Through Energy

When designed intentionally, energy access can contribute to several dimensions of women’s empowerment. First, it can increase access to information, through radio, television, and the internet, which can influence awareness of rights and opportunities. Second, it can provide tools that support income generation, giving women more economic independence. Third, it can reduce drudgery in tasks such as cooking, grinding, or water collection, which can free time for education, political participation, or rest.

Energy can also support services that are particularly important for women, such as maternal health care, refrigeration of medicines, safe spaces for community organizing, and communication for emergency situations. Electrified health centers can improve outcomes during childbirth, while lighting around clinics and public spaces can influence women’s willingness to seek care, especially at night.

However, empowerment is not guaranteed. There can be cases where men take control of new income streams that energy makes possible, or where women’s unpaid work simply expands to include operating new appliances. To support genuine empowerment, projects often combine energy access with broader initiatives on education, legal rights, credit, and social norms.

Monitoring, Evaluation, And Learning With A Gender Lens

Assessing the gender impacts of energy access requires thoughtful monitoring and evaluation. Basic questions include who is connected, who uses which services, who decides about spending on energy, and how time use, income, health, and safety have changed for women and for men.

Monitoring systems can track indicators such as the number of women and men attending community energy meetings, numbers of women in technical and management roles, changes in hours spent collecting fuel, and the share of loans for energy appliances going to women entrepreneurs. Qualitative information collected through interviews and stories can reveal changes in confidence, decision making power, and social relations that are not easily captured in numbers.

Feedback loops are important. If monitoring shows that women are not benefiting as expected, project teams can adapt activities, for example by changing outreach strategies, revising financing schemes, or strengthening partnerships with women’s organizations. Over time, this learning can improve not only single projects but also broader policies and programs.

Gender Responsive Policies And Institutions

Beyond individual projects, policies and institutions play a central role in shaping how gender and energy access interact. National energy policies can explicitly recognize gender equality as a goal and require that public energy programs include gender analysis and gender responsive actions. Regulatory frameworks can encourage utilities and off grid companies to collect sex disaggregated data and to design tariffs and connection procedures that are accessible to low income households, many of which are headed by women.

Institutions responsible for energy, such as ministries, regulators, and utilities, can integrate gender focal points, training, and internal guidelines. Hiring and promotion policies can seek to increase women’s representation not only in administrative positions but also in technical, managerial, and leadership roles. Collaboration between energy institutions and ministries focused on gender equality, social welfare, or rural development can support more coherent approaches.

At the international level, many development agencies, climate funds, and global initiatives now require gender action plans for energy projects they support. These plans typically outline how gender analysis will be conducted, how women and men will participate, and how outcomes will be monitored. While such requirements do not guarantee success, they can create incentives to address gender considerations more systematically.

Linking Gender, Energy Access, And Broader Development Goals

Gender equality in energy access is closely connected to wider agendas of sustainable development. Modern energy supports poverty reduction, health, education, and economic growth. At the same time, gender equality is both a goal in itself and a means to achieve other goals. When women participate fully in planning, delivering, and using energy services, energy systems tend to be more responsive, resilient, and inclusive.

For absolute beginners, the core idea is that energy is not only a technical or economic issue. It is also a social issue that interacts with existing patterns of power and inequality. Paying attention to gender does not mean designing separate systems for women and for men. It means looking carefully at who does what, who decides, who benefits, and who might be at risk of harm, and then adjusting energy policies and projects so that they contribute to a more just and sustainable world for people of all genders.