Gift giving results in energy-poverty suffering: A new explanation of the nonincome poor traps in hidden energy poverty in China

•To identify households with under-consumption behavior as energy poverty, hidden energy poverty indicators for the scenario of China are established.•This article finds that gift-giving norms embedded in China aggregates hidden energy poverty.•Although the share of hidden-energy-poor declines with time, two-thirds of the hidden-energy-poor is not income poor.•The non-income-poor is with larger gift-giving expenses that crowd out energy consumption, and consequently trapped in energy poverty.