Exposure and Vulnerability Toward Summer Energy Poverty in the City of Madrid: A Gender Perspective

Recent research has addressed the special relationship between energy poverty and women. Despite that not many studies are yet available, results show that there might be strong gender inequalities connected with household’s energy deprivation. Furthermore, differentiated health impacts have been detected between men and women, putting women into a more vulnerable position. In this sense, the so-called feminization of energy poverty is urging a revision of the existing studies from a gender perspective to foster its inclusion within energy poverty alleviation policies. The present study explores the links between summer energy poverty and gender in the city of Madrid. Summer energy poverty is considered another variety of energy deprivation particularly relevant within mid- and low-latitude countries, in which energy consumption for cooling is heavily increasing. It also seems to be particularly relevant in cities in which the urban heat island introduces relevant variations in the microclimatic conditions that might increase the housing-cooling demand. Following the methodology developed in previous studies, the risk of suffering from summer energy poverty is, in this paper, explored considering the household’s gender composition. The geospatial distribution of their vulnerability is compared with other indicators related to their exposure to high temperatures: the housing energy efficiency and the cooling degree hours. The evaluation at the sub-municipal scale is carried out among the different subgroups in which a woman is the main breadwinner: single women with children and single women over 65 years old. Their situation is also compared to those households in which a man is the main breadwinner. The analysis of the selected variables is conducted using a hot spot analysis, which evaluates the autocorrelation of each variable according to its spatial distribution. Results show that women living alone and above 65 years old seem to be under the highest risk. They concentrate in areas with low energy-efficient housing stock and strong urban heat island intensities. On a general basis, the income gap between women and men makes it advisable to address energy poverty with a gender perspective.