Pattern and correlates of cooking energy poverty among rural households in Lesotho

Despite the availability of cleaner cooking fuel technologies, cooking energy poverty re-mains a prevailing issue in developing contexts, including Lesotho, disproportionately af-fecting the populations.This study examines the differences in the prevalence of cooking energy poverty and it's correlates with a focus on gender disparities in household headship, in Lesotho.Using the 2023-2024 Lesotho Demographic and Health Survey, descriptive sta-tistics, chi-square test, and the logit regression estimation technique, key correlates such as age, marital status, education, household size, wealth, district, and electricity access were evaluated.Firstly, it was established that energy poverty was high among both female and male-headed household accounting for 72.21% of female-headed household compared to 71.10% for male-headed households.Secondly, the result highlights that the distribution of energy poverty differed significantly between female-and male-headed households based on their marital status, educational attainment, district, and access to electricity.The uti-lized econometric modelling (logit regression) showed that there existed gender-based vari-ations in that while older household heads face higher risks across genders, widowed and divorced female heads exhibit heightened vulnerability due to economic insecurity.Educa-tion reduced energy poverty risk for male-headed households but showed limited impact for females, reflecting systemic barriers like wage gaps and labour market discrimination.Larger households and lower wealth status increase cooking energy poverty likelihood irre-spective of gender, but female-headed households often face compounded challenges.These findings underscored the need for gender-sensitive energy policies, targeted subsidies, and empowerment initiatives to alleviate energy poverty and promote equitable transitions to modern cooking technologies.