Multiple faces of poverty: Exploring housing-costs-induced energy poverty in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The series of crises, first pandemic, then energy, and finally war threaten the most vulnerable in all countries. This study attempts to unveil the faces of the energy poor to shape conscious policies concerning these households. We focus on the profile of energy-poor households in 11 CEE countries, such as Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We identify nine distinct profiles of energy poor households and key vulnerability characteristics. The first one is low income, which, especially for retirees, does not allow them to meet their energy needs. The second one is living in houses. The third one is the mismatch between housing size and household needs. The fourth is a large number of children in the household. Our source of micro-data is the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions collected in 2020. We perform the analysis using the partitioning around medoids algorithm on the sample of 18,331 energy poor households, which represent about 22.6 % of all observations. We highlight several policy issues in this study. It is important to make the housing market more flexible to adjust accommodation to the size of households. Pension systems should account for population aging and improve the financial situation of single elderly persons. Finally, large families with dependent children should be supported more effectively.