From measuring fuel poverty to identification of fuel poor households: a case study in Greece

It is widely recognized that fuel poverty is a multidimensional social problem triggering significant adverse consequences to households. This paper aims at developing approaches and algorithms to identify the fuel poor households in a region, which is a prerequisite to implement effective tackling policies, by utilizing the collected microdata within the framework of the EU-SILC survey. In this context, emphasis is given on the examination of key subjective indicators to monitor the evolution of fuel poverty in Greece over the last decade. Furthermore, they are utilized to formulate composite indicators aiming to describe the problem of fuel poverty, including its depth, more precisely. The results of the analysis showed that 4 out of 10 households in Greece face some type of fuel poverty, while the problem for 1 in 3 of them has more structural characteristics. Based on these findings, two different logistic regression models are developed that seek to correlate the probability of a household suffering from fuel poverty with specific and easily identifiable characteristics. The types of the dwelling, if it is privately owned or rented, the location of residence, the household’s income, the level of education of the head of the household, etc., were identified as the main drivers of fuel poverty in Greece.