THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY

AND DEVELOPMENT

Niyonshuti Emmanuel and Kwitonda Japhet,

“Impact of Rural Electrification on

Ugandan Women’s Empowerment:
Evidence from Micro-Data,”

Volume 46, Number 1

Copyright 2022
 IMPACT OF RURAL ELECTRIFICATION ON
UGANDAN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT: EVIDENCE
FROM MICRO-DATA

Niyonshuti Emmanuel and Kwitonda Japhet*

Introduction

T oday, 770 million people have no access to electricity and hundreds of mil-
lions live without reliable access to it.1 The number of people with access to
electricity has increased from 1990 when approximately 71 percent of the world’s
population had access to electricity to 86 percent in 2016; however, that still left
13 percent of the global population without access to electricity in 2016. However,
the progress in expanding access to reliable electricity has remained uneven with

*Niyonshuti Emmanuel is the Head of Research and Development at Energy 4 Better Future
company (E4BF), a private energy company. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in
applied physics option of renewable energy from the University of Rwanda and received his Master of
Science degree with honors in energy economics from the Africa Centre of Excellence in Energy for
Sustainable Development (ACEESD) at the University of Rwanda. Additionally, the author
participated in the Africa School of Fundamental Physics and its Applications (ASP2018) held in
Windhoek, Namibia.
Kwitonda Japhet is a project manager for cooking renewable energy projects in a private company
working on clean energy in Rwanda. He holds a Master of Science degree in energy economics, and he
worked in the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in
agricultural economics and agribusiness. The author has worked for a private-sector company that has
an agricultural platform called Mlima, which provides all services that farmers need in their agricultural
activities such as market information, input information, financial institutions, insurance companies,
and other stakeholders engaged in the agriculture sector. The platform has more than 25,000 farmers
that access it. Additionally, the author has participated in international conferences on clean energy
projects in the transportation sector and on powering the new energy world.

The Journal of Energy and Development, Vol. 46, Nos. 1-2

Copyright # 2022 by the International Research Center for Energy and Economic Development
(ICEED). All rights reserved.
63
64 THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT

75 percent of the world’s population without electricity access living in Sub-

Saharan Africa, the region in which our case study country of Uganda is located.2
Access to energy is intrinsically related to equity issues and in particular in
addressing gender inequities. The United Nations has highlighted women’s equal-
ity and empowerment as one of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals but also as
integral to all dimensions of inclusive and sustainable development. Electricity is
linked to various socio-economic well-being indicators and lack of electricity
access results in various outcomes at both the societal and the individual level. Fur-
thermore, there are different implications for varying levels of electricity access
among different demographic groups with our focus being on gender-related
variations.
Toward the beginning of the 1970s, there was increased focus on the impor-
tance of expanding rural electricity access, which was viewed as a critical develop-
ment component that bolstered not only the socio-economic well-being at a
national level but also at the household and individual levels. Further research in
the 1980s studied the impacts of remote area electricity access on earnings and
household/family well-being by assessing the relationships between electricity
access in remote areas and poverty, prosperity, income, and businesses. In the
ensuing decades, much attention has been given to unraveling the relationship
between electricity access and a number of socio-economic variables, including
income. However, given the volume of literature on this subject, there has been
less investigation into Sub-Saharan countries relative to other nations, and this is
true of Uganda too.
Uganda currently has one of the lowest per-capita electricity consumption rates
in the world with 215 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per capita per year; when put into con-
text, this must be assessed in relation to Sub-Saharan Africa’s average of 552 kWh
per capita and the world average of 2,975 kWh per capita. This low per-capita
electricity consumption has massive implications for the socio-economic well-
being of Ugandan citizens and women in particular. Moreover, there is a significant
disparity in electricity access inside the country. According to the International
Energy Agency’s data, 55 percent of Uganda’s population living in urban areas has
access to electricity, while a mere 7 percent of the rural population has access to
electricity.3 Further compounding the issue is that the majority of the Ugandan
population (approximately 75 percent in 2020) lives in rural areas.4 Overall, the
electricity policy in Uganda has tended to favor urban and more densely populated
areas given the cost effectiveness of reaching these end users. Additionally, the
government has urged all households to connect to the grid once it is accessible in
their communities. Net electricity generation in Uganda was 3.9 billion kWh in
2013, of which 2.9 billion kWh was from hydroelectricity, 1 billion kWh from
fossil-fuel sources, and a small amount from modern biomass and waste.5 The vast
majority of the population, particularly in rural areas, relies on traditional biomass
and waste (typically consisting of wood, charcoal, manure, and crop residues) for
 ELECTRIFICATION & UGANDAN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 65

household heating and cooking. The use of biomass has long been associated with
negative health issues, thus making increasing assess to electricity and modern
forms of energy even more imperative for Uganda. Furthermore, much time is
spent, particularly by Ugandan women without electricity, in fuel collection.
Uganda has reformed its energy sector including a new legal and regulatory
framework based on which the previously vertically integrated monopoly, Uganda
Electricity Board, was unbundled leading to public/private partnerships. The Ugan-
dan government encourages private-sector investments in generation and distribu-
tion of electricity; however, transmission above 33kV remains a public function
through the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd (UETCL). The Elec-
tricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) was established to license and regulate opera-
tions of all electricity operators. In order to increase rural access to electricity, the
Rural Electrification Agency (REA) was established and expanding rural electricity
access is part of the government’s poverty reduction strategy. Overall, the energy
sector is one of the key sectors of the Ugandan economy. Significant public invest-
ment has been injected into the sector, particularly in the area of electricity supply.
Following liberalization, the power sub-sector is now attracting the largest private-
sector investments in the country. The sector is not only a vital input into other sec-
tors, but also a major source of employment. Uganda’s Rural Electricity Access
Project (REP) had set the objective of achieving a 10-percent rural electricity
access rate, a net increment of 400,000 households, by 2015. The essential goal
was to decrease imbalances in access to electricity and associated opportunities for
expanded social welfare, education, health, well-being, and income generation.6
Empirical research has found that electricity access disproportionally benefits
women and girls. One such work by T. Dinkelman evaluated the case of South
Africa where access to electricity in rural areas was found to have raised women’s
employment in the study area by 9.5 percent as electricity released them from
time-consuming domestic activities and allowed them to participate in microenter-
prises.7 Another study by D. Salehi-Isfahani and S. Taghvatalab for Iran showed
that access to reliable electricity resulted in a 23-percent increase of rural women
working outside of the home due to more efficient home production in the form of
lighting and modern cooking appliances.8 Much of the research to date has found
that improving access to electricity allows women to participate more fully in their
local economies while also fostering other factors associated with gender empow-
erment. Additionally, by improving the health and well-being of women overall,
productivity, as a whole, increases at the community level.
The study by W. Annecke for South Africa, in addition to the previously men-
tioned T. Dinkelman work, showed that access to electricity increased the eco-
nomic contribution of women and women’s employment.9 The researchers showed
that adoption of electricity increased employment and was particularly important
among women who would be considered most marginalized. This is because in
districts with the average increase in electricity access over the period (15 percent),
66 THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT

women worked about 8.9 more hours per week or a 3.5-percent increase. On the
other hand, the study showed increases in male employment with improved elec-
tricity access were insignificant in electrified areas, although to a lesser degree than
for females.10
In Nicaragua, access to electricity caused an increase in daily efficiency in gath-
ering fuel of around 60 minutes (women: 45 minutes and men: 65 minutes) where
men invested twice as much energy in this activity relative to women before access
to electricity.11 In this last case, electricity allowed for the adoption of more effi-
cient cooking methods, which was cited as leading to a reduction in time spent
gathering fuel for traditional cooking methods.12
A similar finding of the value of access to electricity and decreases in laborious
chores, which include fuel collection, was found for the case of the Philippines. In
this study, the researchers discovered a significant reduction in total time spent on
chores (including collecting firewood) by one hour per day.13 In certain states in
India, where women without electricity spent twice as much time collecting fuel as
men spent on this activity, both genders decreased their time allocated by 3.3 hours
per month when having electricity access.14
In addition, some researchers have found a relationship between improved
access to electricity, specifically in rural areas, and expanded educational opportu-
nities for girls. In a study on Afghanistan, women in the studied area said that with
access to electricity their daughters then were able to engage in activities in the
evening that were previously done during the day, such as carpet weaving and
other chores that supported the family, and the girls were subsequently able to
attend school during the day as a result of access to electricity.15 Similarly, an
econometric study from India proposed that a reallocation of girls’ home duties
from daytime to the evenings resulted in girls’ increased enrolment in school,
which resulted in reducing the parents’ opportunity costs of sending their daughters
to school.16 In a study of Madagascar, researchers found that electricity access did
not change the degree to which girls and young women helped their mothers, but
their study time was reallocated from daytime to the evenings, when they would
get help from their parents.17 Thus, the research suggests that children’s education,
and particularly for girls and young women, was improved with home
electrification.
Last, access to electricity may open the door for the adoption of new technolo-
gies that affect gender roles associated with traditional practices and, in turn, lead
to more interest in the use of time-saving technologies and reallocation of daily
activities. For example, in studies on South Africa, researchers found that with
home electrification some men engaged in cooking and ironing as a result of the
introduction of electric appliances.18 Women in Bangladesh reportedly increased
their income by 0.44 percent per year by using electrified tools for income-
generating activities.19 While much of the literature supports the link between elec-
trification and increased women’s income, this has not been supported by all
 ELECTRIFICATION & UGANDAN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 67

empirical research. For example, in a study conducted on two Indian cases the
research showed that electrification did not affect women’s incomes.20
However, worldwide we see that women’s empowerment tends to increase with
electrification access as it provides greater economic and financial benefits along
with allowing increased opportunities for other services and development-
enhancing activities such as education and learning. The review of literature on the
improvements in lighting services showed both genders benefit; however, generally
speaking, women experience a reduction in time spent on domestic activities,
which allows them to spend more time on socialization and other pursuits.21 With
electrification access both genders tend to have improved access to communica-
tions and information technologies.22 Electricity also facilitates women’s mobility
outside of their homes, particularly at night, as it increases security.23
Additional research has shown that access to electricity benefits women
entrepreneurs and their small businesses, such as hairdressing, ironing services,
phone charging, and other forms of income generation based on electronic
devices. These businesses can help women move out of extreme poverty as
was demonstrated in research on Ghana as households gained access to elec-
tricity generated by small-scale grids.24 Current empirical works undertaken by
various researchers largely have focused on accessibility to electricity grid serv-
ices and micro-enterprise development, drivers of and obstacles to rural electri-
fication, and influences of electricity access on rural enterprises. However, less
research has been undertaken on the African continent in regard to the impact
of electrification and women’s empowerment in the family unit; in particular,
studies on Sub-Saharan African countries such as Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and
others have received far less academic attention. Little has been done to iden-
tify the impact of electrification on women’s empowerment in rural family
units in Uganda. Therefore, we endeavor to address this disparity in this study
of Uganda, which attempts to bridge the knowledge gap in the literature as we
consider the role of electrification and women’s empowerment as a process fos-
tering gender equality in our analytical analysis.
This paper is laid out as follows. We begin with an overview of the research
methodology, which includes a theoretical framework, the presentation of our
model, and explanation of our data sources. Next, we will discuss our results and
how access to electricity effects key aspects of women’s empowerment in rural
Uganda including household assets and income, time allocation, and contraception
use. Last, we will offer the reader our conclusions

Research Methodology

Theoretical Framework: In developing the theoretical framework to evaluate

women’s empowerment in rural areas of Uganda, we focused on establishing and
68 THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT

clarifying the focus group, in our case women in households with electricity access
and then looking at the direct benefits, subsequent outputs and outcomes, and the
final impact on key women’s empowerment indicators. Figure 1 outlines the steps
involved in our process. In terms of direct benefits, we look at how electrification
results in more efficient use of time and skills development and enables greater
usage of electronics. This, in turn, has a direct impact on increasing the number of
activities that women can undertake including working outside the home and oper-
ating businesses. Then we assess the outcomes of these direct benefits including
increased efficiency, productivity, income generation, assets, and quality of serv-
ices. Last, we see what the final impact and effects on critical women’s empower-
ment indicators are for our target group.
Modeling: To achieve our objective and uncover the linkage between electric-
ity access and women’s empowerment, we used equation (1) since there are
repeated observations both at the household and community levels. We utilized a
fixed-effects (FE) method for the estimation that allows for the evaluation of the
effects of electrification on women’s empowerment, including estimating the fol-
lowing conditional outcome equation (1):

Ypt 5ay p 1by Xpt 1gy Vpt 1dEpt 1«ypt (1)

In equation (1) for fixed effects (community and survey year), Ypt is the out-
come variables of interest (household assets, household income, formal education
for females, number of hours spent in home activities, number of hours spent on
fetching water, number of hours spent on farming activities, number of hours spent
in firewood collection, and contraception use) of a given household from the com-
munity or village. The term p is a community fixed effects, while t denotes the
survey year fixed effect. The community effect absorbs all time invariants and both
observable and unobservable village attributes that could affect electricity access in
the community, which may include social norms and distance from household to
grid. On the other hand, the fixed year effect is being used to account for time-
varying characteristics that can influence electricity access. Another variable of
interest is Ept (whether a household has electricity or not). The model also contains
the time-varying household and community characteristics represented by Xpt and
Vpt , respectively. The household characteristics include age of the household head,
age of woman/wife within the household, household size, gender of the household
head, household location urban/rural, and the number of dependents and «ypt is
unobserved factors affecting the women’s empowerment indicator Ypt .
Data Sources: This study consists of examining the link between electricity
access and women’s empowerment using two waves of data for the periods of
2010/2011 and 2011/2012. Our data sources included the UNPS, which is
implemented by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBS) with support of the
World Bank’s Living Standard Measurement Study. For the household level
 ELECTRIFICATION & UGANDAN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 69

examination, an aggregate community level panel dataset was built from 2010
up to 2018 and populated with Uganda’s information statistics from the Human
Development Surveys (HDS), which were mutually completed by analysts from
the Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) in Kampala. For this study,
we used a sample of 4,015 households that have been surveyed between 2010
and 2012. In wave one the number of surveyed households was 1,555 and in
wave two it was 2,460.

Results and Discussion

In table 1, we present our research results and provide the mean value attributes
of electricity users and non-users in rural Uganda for both of the two wave periods
studied—2010/2011 and 2011/2012—and the average values of the key variables
used in this study. Table 1 provides more details of the descriptive statistics of
household characteristics (age of the household head, age of woman/wife within

Figure 1
THEORY OF CHANGE FROM ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY AND WOMEN’S
EMPOWERMENT

Target Group Women in households with electricity access

Efficient me use, Electronic appliance usage

skill development (phone, computer,…)
Direct Benefits Increase of the number
of acvies and
decision making

Increase in working hours Business creaon and expansion

outside of the home (phone charging, hairdressing salon,
ironing, financial transacons)
Output/Outcome
Quality of services and Income generaon and assets
efficient producon increase

Final Impact Effects on women empowerment indicators

70 THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT

Table 1
MEAN VALUE ATTRIBUTES OF ELECTRICITY USERS AND NON-USERS IN RURAL
UGANDA, 2010–2012 a
Wave 1 (2010/2011) Wave 2 (2011/2012)
Electricity Electricity Electricity
Electricity Users Non-Users T-test Users Non-Users T-test
Women Empowerment Indicators
Household assets/UGX
77,500,000 12,400,000 27.63 69,200,000 13,800,000 213.26
Total household income/UGX
6,035,965 1,941,235 26.96 9,439,790 1,942,684 215.63
Household assets/USD
45,420 7,283 27.63 28,710 5,727 213.26
Total household income/USD
3,536 1,137 26.96 3,914 805 215.63
No formal education for female (in mean value)
0.16 0.17 0.15 0.20 0.17 21.27
Hours spent in domestics activities
15.21 16.55 1.41 14.95 14.46 20.63
Hours spent in fetching water
1.32 5.18 7.89 1.28 3.70 7.92
Hours spent in farming activities
1.72 8.71 7.86 1.88 10.02 10.37
Hours in firewood collection
0.17 2.19 10.45 0.25 2.23 10.10
Hours spent in food processing
0.00 0.54 3.43 0.20 0.78 3.97
Contraception use (mean value)
0.44 0.33 22.96 0.43 0.31 23.72
Household Characteristic Variables
Age of the household head (in years)
41.17 43.25 2.04 43.85 47.66 4.17
Age of the woman in household (in years)
35.41 37.59 2.33 38.56 42.69 4.35
Gender of household head
0.74 0.73 20.36 0.72 0.69 20.75
Household location urban or rural (mean value)
0.73 0.15 220.55 0.68 0.14 223.94
Dependents’ rate (ratio of household size over the number of children born within the household)
0.50 0.69 5.09 0.38 0.54 5.23
Number of households
Wave 1 5 1,555 Wave 2 5 2,460

a
UGX 5 Ugandan shilling.
Source: Author’s computation based on UNPS data for wave 1 (2010/2011) and wave 2 (2011/
2012).
 ELECTRIFICATION & UGANDAN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 71

the household, gender of the household head, household location urban/rural, and
the ratio of dependents to household size) along with the outcome variables (house-
hold assets, household income, formal education for female, number of hours spent
in home/domestic activities, number of hours spent on fetching water, number of
hours spent on farming activities, number of hours spent in firewood collection,
number of hours spent in food processing, and contraception use).
In wave 1, the average age of the household head was 41 years for non-users of
electricity and 43 years for electricity users while in wave 2 the average age for
electricity users was 43 years and 47 years for non-users. This illustrates that an
increase in the age of the head of the household is associated with a decrease of
access to electricity. This pattern holds true for the age of the woman/wife within
the household, which in wave one for electricity users averaged 35 years compared
to 37 years for non-users while in wave two the average was 38 years for electric-
ity users and 42 years for non-users. The dependents’ rate is the ratio between
household size over the number of children born within the household. The
dependents’ rate for both waves one and two show a similar trend of a lower
dependents’ ratio being associated with electricity users, 0.50 percentage points for
wave 1 and 0.38 percentage points for wave two, relative to the households that
were non-users of electricity with a 0.69 percentage point in wave 1 and 0.54 per-
centage point in wave 2. This illustrates that having electricity access is associated
with a fewer number of dependents within the household. Women who live in
households in urban regions are more likely to use electricity. As can be seen in
table 1, in wave one, the percentage of those with electricity access living in urban
areas has increased by 73 percent and by 15 percent for non-users, which is the
same case in wave two where the chance of electricity access in urban areas has
increased by 68 percent and 14 percent for non-users.
Women who live in electrified households are more likely to have both higher
total household incomes and total household asset values. The total average annual
income in wave 1 for electricity users’ households is higher (U.S. $3,536) com-
pared to households of non-electricity users (U.S. $1,137) and in wave 2 for elec-
tricity users the average annual income was U.S. $3,914 while for non-electricity
users it was U.S. $805. We find a similar pattern in the numbers for total house-
hold assets, but it indicates an even larger disparity between electricity access and
asset accumulation. In wave 1, electricity user households average asset value
totaled U.S. $45,420 compared to U.S. $7,283 for non-electricity user households
and in wave 2 that number was U.S. $28,710 for electricity using households ver-
sus U.S. $5,727 for non-electricity using households. Furthermore, women are
more likely to have no formal education if they have no access to electricity as is
shown in the table (16 percent for electricity users and 17 percent for electricity
non-users).
The number of hours working in different home activities that women engage
in such as fetching water, firewood collection, processing food, and other
72 THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT

domestics activities are reduced for electricity users, who spend less hours on these
activities relative to the women without access to electricity. This allows women
with electricity the ability to engage in other activities with their time savings
including earning additional income. Women are more likely to use contraception
in wave one if they reside in households with electricity access (0.44 percentage
points) versus if they have no access to electricity (0.33 percentage points). Simi-
larly, in wave 2, for the electricity users, the probability of using contraception is
0.43 percentage points versus 0.31 percentage points for non-electricity users.
Analytical Results: Our analytical results are provided in tables 2 to 4. As we
illustrated in figure 1, we are assessing the direct benefits to our target group of
women as a result of access to electricity. We are evaluating key outcomes to
determine the effect of electricity access on generally accepted indicators of wom-
en’s empowerment. In table 2 we look at the impact of access to electricity on two
critical financial variables at the household level: assets and income. We next look
at how access to electricity impacts the time allocation for the women in the house-
hold (table 3), which represents the number of hours spent in home activities,
fetching water, farming activities, firewood collection, food processing, and other
domestic activities associated with electricity access using the fixed effects as were
described in equation (1). Last, we look at electricity access and contraception use
with the results presented in table 4.
Access to Electricity and the Impact on Household Assets and Income:
From table 2, we see the results of access to electricity on household assets and
income. When households use electricity the total estimated value of all the assets
owned by the household is increased by 100.0 percentage points and the house-
hold’s income increases by 89.8 percentage points both being significant. This fur-
ther supports the view that access to electricity is important in household asset and
income growth and accumulation.
When assessing the role of the household head’s age on our two variables—
household assets and household income—we find that for one additional year
added to the household head’s age, there is a significant associated increase of 1.3
percentage points in the total estimated household asset value but with a slight
decline in household income by 0.1 percentage points. Similarly, in terms of the
age of the household spouse, we find that one additional year of age is associated
with an increase of 0.9 percentage points of the total household assets and a
decrease of 0.1 percentage points of the household total income. The size of the
household is also significant for household assets and income; for every one unit
increase in the total number of household members there is a 15.1 percentage point
increase of the household’s total assets and an increase of 12.5 percentage points
of the household’s total income both reaching a significance level.
Not surprisingly, when there is no formal basic education for women, there is
an associated decrease of 18.6 percentage points (reaching the significance level)
in total estimated value of the household’s assets and with a decrease of 10.2
 ELECTRIFICATION & UGANDAN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 73

Table 2
UGANDA: ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY, HOUSEHOLD ASSETS, AND INCOME, 2010–2012.a
Variables Household Assets Household Income
Household with electricity access (yes 5 1) 1.000*** 0.898***
(0.126) (0.109)
Age of household head 0.013*** 20.001
(0.005) (0.005)
Age of spouse within household 0.009 20.001
(0.005) (0.005)
Number of household members 0.151*** 0.125***
(0.010) (0.009)
Gender of the household head 0.577*** 0.042
(0.090) (0.076)
Formal education for women (no formal 5 1) 20.186** 20.102
(0.086) (0.078)
Location of the household (urban 5 1) 0.056 0.285***
(0.105) (0.090)
Dependents 20.263*** 20.122**
(0.081) (0.060)
Constant 5.183*** 5.015***
(0.158) (0.137)
Survey year FE Yes Yes
Ethnicity FE Yes Yes
Observations 3,457 3,457
R-squared 0.256 0.199

a
Robust standard errors in parentheses; *** 5 p , 0.01; ** 5 p , 0.05; and * 5 p , 0.1.
Source: Author’s computation based on UNPS data for wave 1 (2010/2011) and wave 2(2011/
2012).

percentage points in the household’s total income. If the household head is female
there was an increase of 57.7 percentage points (reaching the significance level) of
the household’s total assets and an increase of 4.2 percentage points of the house-
hold’s total income. This directly implies the economic empowerment of women
within the household unit.
As expected, with the households living in the urban areas, there was an associ-
ated increase of 5.6 percentage points on the total estimated value of household’s
assets and a significant increase of 28.5 percentage points of the household’s total
income. With an increase of one dependent on the household’s rate of dependents
(the proportion of the number of children to the total household size), there is an
associated and significant decline of 26.3 percentage points of the household’s total
assets and a significant decline of 12.2 percentage points of the household’s total
74 THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT

income. Thus, our study’s results show the positive linkages between two key
financial metrics for women’s empowerment—total household assets and house-
hold income—and access to electricity. Additionally, in the case of Uganda, age of
household head, size of household, gender of household head, formal education of
women, location of household, and number of dependents are all pertinent varia-
bles in household asset and income accumulation. These findings are important for
policy makers aiming to foster improved household wealth generation in Uganda.
Access to Electricity and Time Allocation in Uganda: One of the most
important elements in evaluating the differences between households with electric-
ity access and those without it is to consider how electricity changes time alloca-
tion. In particular, previous studies have found a significant improvement for
women in households with electricity as it frees up their time, which can then be
redirected to other activities. Women with more free time can then pursue income-
generating activities or avenues that support improved socio-economic well-being.
Table 3 provides the breakdown of the time allocation on an hourly basis spent
on five household activities: (1) fetching water, (2) farming, (3) firewood collec-
tion, (4) food processing, and (5) other domestic activities. We find that in the case
of Uganda, access to electricity reduces the time spent on all five of our studied
household and domestic activities, and that the findings meet at significant thresh-
olds for hours spent on fetching water, farming, firewood collection, and food
processing. Overall, households that have electricity access see a 37.2 percentage
point decrease in hours spent by women in fetching water. The impact is even
greater for hours spent in farming activities, where electricity access results in
women spending 62.9 percentage points fewer hours in this activity. In the case of
hours spent in firewood collection, those households with electricity access see a
35.1 percentage point decrease in women’s hours spent on that activity, which is a
finding similar to those by R. Heltberg for eight developing countries,25 in which
switching fuel from wood to electricity frees up a large number of hours. Electric-
ity access for the household was associated with a decline of 3.7 percentage points
in hours spent on food processing. This is aligned with the results of T. Dinkleman
who found that electricity access in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal
triggered a decline in the usage of wood for food preparation.26 There was a 2.1
percentage point decline in hours spent on other domestic activities.
When we evaluate other variables in our study and the impacts on time alloca-
tion, we find that adding a year to the age of the household head is associated with
negligible and non-significant declines in the hours spent on fetching water (0.2
percentage points), firewood collection (0.3 percentage points), and other house-
hold activities (0.2 percentage points), while having no effect on the hours spent in
food processing. Table 3 reports that adding an additional year to the age of the
spouse within the household is significant for both reducing the hours spent on
fetching water by a 1.3 percentage point decline and hours spent on other house-
hold activities by 1.0 percentage points. While not meeting the significance
 ELECTRIFICATION & UGANDAN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 75

Table 3
UGANDA: ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY AND TIME ALLOCATION FOR THE WOMAN IN
THE HOUSEHOLD, 2010–2012 a
(5) Hours
(1) Hours (3) Hours (4) Hours Spent in
Spent in (2) Hours Spent in Spent in Other
Fetching Spent in Firewood Food Domestic
Variables Water Farming Collection Processing Activities
Household with electricity 20.372*** 20.629*** 20.351*** 20.037** 20.021
access (yes 5 1) (0.049) (0.070) (0.034) (0.018) (0.066)
Age of household head 20.002 0.004 20.003 0.000 20.002
(0.002) (0.004) (0.002) (0.001) (0.003)
Age of spouse within 20.013*** 20.003 20.002 0.000 20.010***
household (0.003) (0.004) (0.002) (0.002) (0.003)
Number of household 20.035*** 0.033*** 20.008** 0.002 0.004
member (0.005) (0.008) (0.004) (0.003) (0.006)
Gender of the household 0.131*** 0.106 0.156*** 0.031 0.109**
head (0.046) (0.068) (0.036) (0.026) (0.052)
Formal education for 20.098** 20.034 20.038 20.058** 0.046
women (no formal 5 1) (0.043) (0.065) (0.034) (0.025) (0.054)
Location of the household 20.117*** 20.798*** 20.514*** 20.061*** 20.155***
(urban 5 1) (0.044) (0.063) (0.033) (0.021) (0.054)
Dependents 0.122*** 0.183*** 0.120*** 0.010 0.237***
(0.031) (0.051) (0.027) (0.018) (0.039)
Constant 1.925*** 1.044*** 1.006*** 0.191*** 2.700***
(0.079) (0.122) (0.064) (0.043) (0.096)
Survey year FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Ethnicity FE Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Observations 3,457 3,457 3,457 3,457 3,457
R-squared 0.276 0.205 0.233 0.134 0.075

a
Robust standard errors in parentheses; *** 5 p , 0.01; ** 5 p , 0.05; and * 5 p , 0.1.
Source: Author’s computation based on UNPS data for wave 1 (2010/2011) and wave 2 (2011/
2012).

threshold, both hours spent on farming activities and firewood collection see per-
centage point declines in association with adding an additional year to the age of
the spouse within the household by 0.3 percentage points and 0.2 percentage
points, whereas we find that there is no impact on hours spent on food processing.
In assessing the impact of adding a member to the total number of family unit
members within a household, we found declines that met the significance threshold
for a reduction in hours spent fetching water (3.5 percentage points) and hours
spent on firewood collection (0.8 percentage points). However, we found a
76 THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT

significant increase in hours spent associated with farming activities of 3.3 percent-
age points with an additional household member. While not reaching a significance
level, we also uncovered that an additional household member resulted in a very
modest increase in both the time spent in food processing (0.2 percentage points)
and other household activities (0.4 percentage points), as one might expect.
Table 3 reports that when the household head is a woman, there are increases in
the time spent on all activities. Meeting the significance threshold, we find that
there is a 13.1 percentage point increase in hours spent fetching water, a 15.6 per-
centage point increase in hours spent on firewood collection, and a 10.9 percentage
point increase in hours spent on other home activities. While not meeting the sig-
nificance threshold, we find that having a female-headed household results in a
10.6 percentage point increase in hours spent on farming activities and a 3.1 per-
centage point increase in hours spent on food processing.
When evaluating the impact of formal basic education on the household head,
we find that no formal basic education is associated with declines in time spent on
fetching water (significant and 9.8 percentage points), farming activities (3.4 per-
centage points), firewood collection (3.8 percentage points), and food processing
(significant and 5.8 percentage points). However, no formal basic education results
in an increase in hours spent on other domestic activities of 4.6 percentage points.
The location of the household also shows that living in urban locations results
in declines that are significant in hours spent on all five activities that we studied.
The numbers are somewhat expected, particularly given that there will be less
farming and greater access to infrastructure in urban locations, which reduces the
time needed by households to complete these activities. An urban location results
in decreasing the time spent on all five of our studied activities, at levels of signifi-
cance, by 11.7 percentage points in hours spent fetching water, 79.8 percentage
points in hours spent in farming activities, 51.4 percentage points in hours spent
collecting firewood, 15.5 percentage points in hours spent in home activities, and
6.1 percentage points in hours spent in food processing. This paints a fairly dispa-
rate picture of urban versus rural time allocation in Uganda.
When assessing the impact on an additional dependent added to the household,
it is not surprising that we find an increase in hours spent in the activities under
study across all five categories. We find a significance level reached in the increase
of hours spent in the following activities by the addition of another dependent to
the household: 12.2 percentage points for hours spent on fetching water, 18.3 per-
centage points for hours spent on farming activities, 12 percentage points for hours
spent on firewood collection, and 23.7 percentage points for other household activi-
ties. While not meeting the significance level, we still found that there is a 1 per-
centage point increase in hours spent on food processing with an additional
dependent.
Access to Electricity and Contraception Use: Access to and use of contracep-
tion has been a variable studied in women’s empowerment assessments across
 ELECTRIFICATION & UGANDAN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 77

multiple countries. We also studied contraception use in the case of Uganda and
the results are presented in table 4. A number of statistically significant results
were found that are of importance to Ugandan women. In terms of the role of
access to electricity and contraception use, we found that there is a significant and
positive relationship. Access to electricity increases contraception use by 7.4 per-
centage points. This could be explained by the fact that electricity users would
have greater access to health information from mass media (TV and radio) in addi-
tion to other public health education provided to the general population to which
non-electricity users would not have access. This has been found to be the case in
research on the country of Rwanda by that nation’s Demographic and Health Sur-
vey, which demonstrated that mass media had a positive impact on contraception
use. Furthermore, women with access to electricity were more likely to use

Table 4
UGANDA: ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY AND CONTRACEPTION USE, 2010–2012 a
Variables Contraception Use
Household with electricity access (yes 5 1) 0.074**
(0.032)
Age of household head 20.005***
(0.001)
Age of spouse within household 20.004***
(0.001)
Number of household members 0.009***
(0.003)
Gender of the household head 0.103***
(0.024)
Formal education for women (no formal 5 1) 20.028
(0.022)
Location of the household (urban 51) 0.089***
(0.026)
Dependents 0.086***
(0.018)
Constant 0.486***
(0.043)
Survey year FE Yes
Ethnicity FE Yes
Observations 3,092
R-squared 0.112

a
Robust standard errors in parentheses; *** 5 p , 0.01; ** 5 p , 0.05; and * 5 p , 0.1.
Source: Author’s computation based on UNPS data for wave 1 (2010/2011) and wave 2 (2011/
2012).
78 THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT

contraception and have smaller household sizes (reduced number of dependents),

which resulted in greater hours available for women to pursue other activities, par-
ticularly in the home.
Also in table 4, we can see that the impact of one more year to the age of the
household head is associated with less likelihood of using contraception by 0.5 per-
centage points (meeting the significance level). Similarly, adding an additional
year of age to the household spouse results in a decreased use of contraception by
0.4 percentage points (meeting the significance level). When looking at the role of
family size on contraception use, we see that adding one member to the household
meets the significance level and results in increased use of contraception by 0.9
percentage points.
We found that in the Ugandan case, the gender of the household head is signifi-
cant in the use of contraception with female household heads increased use by 10.3
percentage points. Education is another factor also positively correlated in research
with increased contraception use. We find this is also true in the case of Uganda.
Household heads with no formal basic education are 2.8 percentage points less
likely to use contraception than their counterparts who have some level of educa-
tion. As one would expect, urban locations of households do result in higher con-
traception use by 8.9 percentage points (meeting the significance level), while the
dependents’ rate is also found to be significant and positive at 8.6 percentage
points. These factors point to ways in which Ugandan women’s health and well-
being can be prioritized via improving, among other things, access to electricity.

Conclusions

This study examined the causal connections between access to electricity and
women’s empowerment in the context of Uganda. Using gender disaggregated
panel data for Uganda over the 2010–2012 time frame, we found that access to
electricity improves a variety of socio-economic indicators at the household level.
Electricity not only is financially beneficial to households in terms of accumulation
of total income and assets, but also has other positive externalities.
Among the most important benefits for Ugandan women is that access to elec-
tricity frees up time previously spent on a variety of domestic activities, which
allows these women to be able to work outside of the home or in other income-
generating activities inside the home such as hairdressing, phone charging, and
ironing services. Ugandan women will also benefit from electricity in their homes
by having more time for education-related activities with children, greater informa-
tion access through media (such as television and radio) and expanded communica-
tion sources (such as phones). Additionally, Ugandan women with electricity
access would also benefit from having more time for leisure and relaxation. The
 ELECTRIFICATION & UGANDAN WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT 79

beneficial impact of electricity access to all members of the household in terms of

furthering educational opportunities and improving scholastic outcomes is also
clear. But this is particularly important for removing many of the obstacles that
girls and young women have traditionally faced when educational opportunities
compete with time-consuming domestic chores. With access to electricity reducing
the time women spend on domestic activities such as fetching water, farming, fire-
wood collection, food processing, and other household functions, they are free to
pursue other activities that result in independent work either internal or external of
the home. This, in turn, promotes improved economic development at the house-
hold level and for the community as a whole.
Empowering women through improving access to electricity, especially by tar-
geting under-served rural areas in Uganda, can help to improve the socio-economic
well-being of individuals, households, local communities, and the nation as a
whole. Policy makers in Uganda should continue their goals to expand
electricity access to a larger part of the population, with an emphasis on rural com-
munities, in order to gain not only empowerment for Ugandan women but for all
Ugandans.

NOTES
1
International Energy Agency (IEA), SDG7 Data and Projections: Access to Electricity (Paris:
IEA, 2019).

M. Blankenship and C. Golubski, “Increasing Access to Electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa,”

2

Brookings Institute, June 18, 2021.

3
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Uganda: Country Brief (Washington, D.C.:
EIA, 2016).
4
Statistica, “Uganda: Urbanization from 2010 to 2020,” available at https://www.statista.com/
statistics/447899/urbanization-in-uganda/.
5
U.S. Energy Information Administration, op. cit.
6
G. Kelkar and D. Nathan, “Gender Relations and the Energy Transition in Rural Asia,” in the
Report to the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) on Gender as a Key Vari-
able in Energy (New Delhi: South Asian Regional Office, UNIFEM, 2005).
7
T. Dinkelman, “The Effects of Rural Electrification on Employment: New Evidence from
South Africa,” American Economic Review, vol. 101, no. 7 (2011), pp. 3078–108, available at
doi:10.1257/aer.101.7.3078.
8
D. Salehi-Isfahani and S. Taghvatalab, “Rural Electrification and Female Empowerment in
Iran: Decline in Fertility,” IIEA Annual Conference, Boston, Boston College, October 2014.
9
W. Annecke, “Whose Turn Is It to Cook Tonight? Changing Gender Relations in a South Afri-
can Township,” in the Report to the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) on
Gender as a Key Variable in Energy (New Delhi: South Asian Regional Office, UNIFEM, 2005).
80 THE JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT
10
A. Panjwani, “Energy as a Key Variable in Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering
Women: A Gender and Energy Perspective on MDG #3,” 2013, available at http://r4d.dfid.gov.uk/
PDF/Outputs/Energy/R8346_mdg_goal3.pdf (2013-05-06).
11
L. Grogan and A. Sadanand, “Rural Electrification and Employment in Poor Countries: Evi-
dence from Nicaragua,” World Development, vol. 42, issue C (2013), pp. 252–65.
12
Ibid.
13
D. Barnes and M. Sen, The Impact of Energy on Women's Lives in Rural India (Washington
D.C:. The World Bank, Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP), 2004),
pp. 1–15.
14
S. R. Khandker, H. A. Samad, R. Ali, and D. F. Barnes, “Who Benefits Most from Rural
Electrification? Evidence in India,” Energy Journal vol. 35, no. 2 (2014), pp. 75–96.
15
K. Standal, Giving Light and Hope in Rural Afghanistan: Enlightening Women's Lives with
Solar Energy (London: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010).

D. M. Van de Walle, “Long-Term Gains from Electrification in Rural India,” The World
16

Bank Economic Review (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2015), pp. 1–36.
17
K. D. Daka and J. Ballet, “Children’s Education and Home Electrification: A Case Study in
Northwestern Madagascar,” Energy Policy, vol. 39 (2011), pp. 2866–874.
18
W. Annecke, op. cit.
19
H. Samad and Z. Fan, “Heterogenous Effects of Rural Electrification: Evidence from
Bangladesh,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 8102, Washington, D.C., World
Bank, 2017.

K. Standal and T. Winther, “Empowerment through Energy? Impact of Electricity on Care

20

Work Practices and Gender Relations,” Forum for Development Studies, vol. 43, no. 1 (2016),
pp. 27–45, available at doi:10.1080/08039410.2015.1134642.

J. Clancy, M. N. Matinga, S. Oparaocha, and T. Winther, “Social Influences on Gender

21

Equity in Access to and Benefits from Energy,” World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2017.
22
K. Standal and T. Winther, op. cit.
23
Ibid.

U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Power Africa, “What Power Africa
24

Means for Ghana,” Power Africa Accra, 2019.

R. Heltberg, “Fuel Switching: Evidence from Eight Developing Countries,” Energy Econom-
25

ics, vol. 26, no. 5 (2004), pp. 869–87.

26
T. Dinkelman, op. cit.