Rural–Urban Differential Use of Cooking Fuel and Its Association with Women’s Nutritional Health and Child’s Birth Weight

Indian women spend the majority of their waking hours in the kitchen. Since women and children spend the majority of their lives at home, the source of their cooking fuels affects their health. Accordingly, the current study examined the usage trend and patterns of solid and clean cooking fuels both before and after the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) based on the NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 databases for India’s rural and urban areas, respectively. The study also looked into how women’s nutritional health (BMI) and childbirth weight were affected by the types and nature of cooking fuels based on NFHS-5 data. Overall, this study found that the use of clean fuel in both rural and urban households significantly increased, and solid fuel use decreased from NFHS-4 to NFHS-5. South Indian states and union territories, except Lakshadweep, belong to a high share of clean fuel users. Result from NFHS-5 shows that underweight and normal weight have a higher prevalence among women who are using solid cooking fuel, but above normal weight have a higher prevalence among women who are using clean cooking fuels in both rural and urban areas. Multivariate decomposition analysis shows that the nutritional gap (BMI) between rural and urban areas was attributed to major contributing factors—wealth index, education level, age, nature of cooking fuels, and food consumption, respectively. Low birth weight has a higher prevalence among those who use solid cooking fuel but normal birth weight has a higher prevalence among clean cooking fuel users in both rural and urban areas although there is a small difference in the use of cooking fuel on both birth weights.