Parental education and household cooking energy choice behaviour in Ghana

Despite efforts and advocacy in favour of transitioning to cleaner cooking fuels, traditional, highly polluting fuels remain dominant in many developing countries. This has prompted the need for further research and evidence to support policies to increase clean energy adoption and accelerate the energy transition agenda in these countries. This study investigates the role of social origin, proxied by parental education, in the choice of cooking fuel in Ghana. Parental education is treated exogenously; hence, linear probability estimation is employed to examine the relationship between parental education and energy choice. The study finds that parental education significantly positively affects clean cooking fuel adoption, with more potent effects found in fathers’ education than in mothers’ education. Heterogeneity analyses show the impact of dampening among lower-income groups and rural residents. With a noticeable shift in educational attainment trends in recent times, as more persons attain higher education, the findings suggest that policies that infuse the socialisation of children with clean energy and sustainability issues will accelerate the clean energy transition.