Cooking Energy Transition and Rural Household Development Resilience: Evidence from China

The global shift toward clean and low-carbon household energy is central to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and improving welfare in developing countries, yet it also raises distributional concerns about who benefits and who is left behind. Using five rounds of data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) spanning 2014–2022, this study employs a two-way fixed-effects model with province and year dummies and the Bootstrap method to examine the association between cooking energy transition and rural household development resilience. The results show that the share of traditional solid fuels (fuelwood and coal) declined from 56.29% in 2014 to 36.56% in 2022, while the share of fossil gas rose from 22.26% to 39.91%, indicating a transitional stage in rural cooking energy use. Cooking energy transition is positively associated with rural household development resilience. Household education and farmers’ digital literacy are positively associated with both cooking energy transition and household development resilience, suggesting they may be relevant channels. The association is more pronounced among households with a low elderly dependency ratio, poor infrastructure accessibility, and adequate energy affordability, underscoring that the benefits of energy transition are not evenly distributed. These findings highlight the importance of inclusive and differentiated energy policies for ensuring that the gains from clean cooking reach the most vulnerable rural households.