Income growth versus labor loss: The joint impacts of rural-urban migration and off-farm employment on household energy use in rural China

The energy transition of rural households is facing both chances and challenges of population migration out of farming and out of rural areas. Yet, the findings of urbanization effects on rural energy transition are inconsistent. The discrepancy in the definition of household employment and migration choices makes the results incomparable. There is also a lack of a comprehensive framework to analyze the effects of interwoven employment and migration changes on household energy use. This study constructs a theoretical framework to differentiate household energy decisions across various employment and migration conditions. Unlike studies from the single view of biofuel supply, this framework focuses on the substitution effects of labor loss on both energy supply and demand sides. Based on the survey data collected in central China in 2021, the study tested the hypotheses empirically and further explored the income and substitution mechanisms. The results indicated that for income effects, both local and migrated off-farm employment can reduce household budget constraints in energy consumption thereby decreasing the energy burden. Per unit of income growth decreases 0.23 %∼0.39 % of household energy burden. For household energy structure change, only the labor-energy substitution effect of local off-farm employment is significant. One more day allocated to local off-farm employment increases the share of modern energy by 0.023 %. These results provide important notice to policymakers to pay more attention to the features and demands of local off-farm employment households in the energy transition. •Local and migrated off-farm employment both have income effects on decreasing energy burden.•Non-migrated off-farm employment has substitution effects on household energy structure changes.•The features and demands of local off-farm employment households need more attention in the energy transition.