Awareness and the Demand of Safe Drinking Water Practices

The demand for environmental goods is often low in developing countries. The major causes are awareness regarding the contamination of water and poverty, but less attention has been paid to the former reason. We use a household survey from Hyderabad city and estimate the contribution of awareness and income on households’ water purification behaviour. The study finds out that measures of awareness such as different level of schooling of decision-makers and household heads and their exposure to mass media have statistically significant effects on home purification methods for drinking water, while other members of households can effect this behaviour only when they get higher levels of schooling.