Beyond the Kitchen: Clean Cooking Fuel Adoption and Intimate Partner Violence in Ghana

Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a major public health and development challenge in lowand middle-income countries, yet little is known about the role of household energy poverty in shaping women's exposure to violence. This study examines whether the adoption of clean cooking fuels reduces the likelihood of experiencing IPV in Ghana. Using nationally representative data from two rounds of the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) and applying propensity score matching, we estimate the effect of clean cooking fuel adoption on multiple forms of IPV. The results show that women in households using clean cooking fuels are significantly less likely to experience sexual, emotional, less severe physical, and severe physical violence than comparable women relying on traditional cooking fuels. These findings are robust across alternative estimators, including nearest-neighbour matching and inverse probability weighting, and remain consistent in sensitivity analyses. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the protective effects are broadly similar across rural and urban areas but are stronger for sexual and severe physical violence in female-headed households. The relationship is also most pronounced among middle-aged households. Mediation analysis provides suggestive evidence that improvements in women's health and reduced physical fatigue partially explain these effects. Expanding access to clean cooking energy may therefore contribute to reducing gender-based violence while advancing broader sustainable development objectives.