Determinants of Domestic Water Use by Rural Households Without Access to Private Improved Water Sources in Benin: A Seemingly Unrelated Tobit Approach

This paper analyzes the determinants of domestic water use in rural areas. The focus is on households without access to private improved water sources. These households use either only free sources, only purchased sources or a combination of free and purchased sources. We also analyze households’ water use behaviors as a function of water availability by explicitly estimating domestic water use for both rainy and dry seasons. Using a Seemingly Unrelated Tobit approach to simultaneously account for the censored nature of water demand and the correlation of error terms between free and purchased water use equations, we find that purchased water demand is perfectly price inelastic due to water scarcity. The important determinants of water use are household size and composition, access to water sources, wealth and time required for fetching water. Nevertheless, the effects of these determinants vary between household types and seasons, and the policy implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010