Identifying Fuel Poverty Using Objective and Subjective Measures

The UK Government is committed to abolishing fuel poverty amongst vulnerable households by the year 2010 and in the general population by 2016, but definition and measurement of fuel poverty remains controversial. We define a new measure of subjective household experience and explore links between this measure and the official objective definition, using a unique data set and the Family Expenditure Survey. We identify the relation between the two measures; explore the characteristics of households in each group; and how each measure is related to other household factors.