Extent, depth, and severity of energy poverty in Central and Eastern Europe in 2020. What factors make a household fall deeper into a predicament?

Lilia is a lecturer on microeconomics and a researcher on energy poverty in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland. Her research interests focus on just
energy transition of households, social inequality and transport energy poverty.

In this study, we focus on the depth and severity of housing-costs-induced energy poverty, which is mainly overlooked in the existing analysis, and examine disparities among the energy poor in eleven Central and Eastern European countries in 2020.
We measure housing-costs-induced energy poverty and follow the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke approach to assess energy poverty. We provide evidence that living in
multi-family buildings and densely populated areas decreases the depth of energy poverty. Generally, renters are more vulnerable than owners; large families need
more money to escape energy poverty. We suggest policymakers account for the depth and severity aspects because deep energy poverty requires more effort
to eliminate, even if the scale of the problem is not large.