Household size and residential water demand: an empirical approach*

Abstract

The effectiveness of pricing policies depends on the price elasticity of consumption. It is well documented that residential demand for water is influenced by heterogeneity associated with differences in the size of the household and socioeconomic characteristics. In this paper, we focus on household size. Our initial hypothesis is that users' sensitivity to changes in price is different depending on the number of household members. To this end, we carry out an empirical estimation of urban water demand in Zaragoza (Spain) distinguishing between households with different sizes using data at the individual level. As far as we are aware, this approach to urban residential water demand is new in the literature. The analysis suggests that all households are sensitive to prices regardless of size. A more relevant finding is that small households are more sensitive to price changes.

Developing Novel Approaches to Tracking Domestic Water Demand Under Uncertainty—A Reflection on the “Up Scaling” of Social Science Approaches in the United Kingdom

“…In contrast and perhaps related to the effect for social and other renters, households with lower employment status (NS-SEC 3) spend more per week than those of higher employment status (NS-SEC 1) when income effects are taken into account (via block 1). Taking the next two blocks (4 & 5) together we can see that, as we would expect from previous studies (Arbues et al 2010) increasing the number of people of nearly all ages has a significant positive effect on weekly metered water expenditure. In particular we note that whilst 2 people spend (use) more than 1 person (£1.20 more, not double) 3 people use only £1.59 more water per week confirming that such effects reduce in scale and the 'excess load' of multiple single person households.…”

“…This is significant as despite a plethora of research on water use from psychological and economic related disciplines it is still relatively unknown whether people's attitudes towards the environment and water, people's intentions to conserve water or install water efficient devices lead to actual sustained water conservation and savings (see Russell and Fielding 2010, for a comprehensive review of these studies). In fact, it is well known that attitudes, intentions and self reported consumption are not predictive of actual water consumption (Hamilton 1985;de Oliver 1999) and that most water used in the home is relatively inelastic to price (Schleich and Hillenbrand 2009;Arbués et al 2003;Arbues et al 2010). This is known in the literature as the attitude-behavior or value-action gap (Gregory and Di Leo 2003).…”

Patterns of practice: a reflection on the development of quantitative/mixed methodologies capturing everyday life related to water consumption in the UK

“…However, the effectiveness of such approaches can be limited: there is a well-observed "value action gap" (Gregory and di Leo, 2003) in people's behaviour -a disjoint between reported attitudes towards the environment and actual actions to reduce water use (see, e.g. Russell and Fielding, 2010 for a review of studies), whilst household water use is typically quite inelastic to price (Arbués et al, 2003;Schleich and Hillenbrand, 2009;Arbués et al, 2010). Such approaches also target relatively minor changes in individual actions, reducing the associated water use in each performance of a practice (increasing its "efficiency") rather than attempting to alter the underlying, systemic structures which encourage and lock in particular ways of meeting preferences, or indeed which shape individuals' preferences for particular practices (Sofoulis, 2011;Watzlawick et al, 1974).…”

“…A household's overall per capita consumption (pcc) of water is predicted based on socioeconomic characteristics and, increasingly, their environmental values as revealed in surveys (Arbués et al, 2003;Memon and Butler, 2006;Arbués et al, 2010;McDonald et al, 2011). These relationships can then be used to predict water use in a given area based on socioeconomic data on the households within it (drawn from census surveys), and forecast based on predicted future population and demographic changes, incorporating different scenarios of change in environmental attitudes (e.g.…”

Measuring the Income Elasticity of Water Demand: The Importance of Publication and Endogeneity Biases

“…since, due to economies of scale, individual consumption should decrease with an increase in household size (Arbues et al, 2010). We also take into account whether the authors include population density in their demand equation, which is often used as a proxy for the housing stock and size of yards (Gaudin, 2005).…”