engleski

Household and Dwelling Characteristics as a Factor of Energy Consumption:Insights from the Household Budget Survey in Croatia

Residential energy consumption has been increasing along with the unprecedented rise in standard of living across most countries since the second half of 20th century. Existing literature puts economic development as a key factor in residential energy consumption yet new approaches in assessing changes in energy consumption are being conducted. Demographic perspective is one of the novel approaches in research on energy. Demographic change, primarily population ageing, presents a process that is being used in explaining rise in energy consumption in developed countries. Few data sources give information on the impact of demographic changes on energy consumption. In this paper, we conducted an exploratory analysis on basic sociodemographic drivers of energy consumption on individual and household level, with the country focus on Croatia. The data used was Household Budget Survey since it is one of the few data sources that combines both sociodemographic and energy consumption variables. This paper focuses on basic sociodemographic characteristics of household members, size and structure and dwelling characteristics in terms of main lasting goods present in housing unit. Given that energy consumption was measured by annual monetary cost of energy, this analysis is thus limited in interpreting other confounding effects that may pose a significant factor in energy consumption such as energy efficiency. Our descriptive results confirm main empirical findings on impact of population ageing on energy consumption. Analysis of other socioeconomic variables and household structure did not yield comparatively strong results, yet it gave an insight in complex relationship between individual socioeconomic characteristics and energy consumption. The limitations of this type of research are discussed since this paper presents a novel and exploratory analysis in the field of energy research, which is witnessing an increasing interest from demographers and other social scientists.

demography, energy consumption, population ageing

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