Establishing the economic condition of woman-headed households in the Third World: a new approach.

Abstract

Representing a preliminary assessment of some of the methodological and conceptual obstacles to obtaining reliable information on the incidence and economic conditions of woman headed households in developing countries this essay emphasizes the need for a more in depth understanding of qualitative variations among these woman headed households which in different social contexts affect their economic standing. The major problem in trying to determine how many households are headed by women in the developing countries is that official census and national survey documentation of the incidence of woman headed households although available and relatively accurate in the developed world is generally unavailable or inaccurate in the less developed world. There are few sources of date on how many households in the 3rd world have de jure woman heads i.e. defined as such by national censuses and data on how many households have de facto woman heads are almost nonexistent. Of the small number of developing countries that include specific tabulations of households heads by sex in their national census data only a few cross tabulate this information by marital status age economic activity rural/urban residence or size. A review by the US Bureau of the Census indicates that there has been some improvement in the distribution of countries that collect data on heads of household. Even when questions on the sex of the are incorporated into data collection procedures major obstacles remain to determining the incidence of woman headed households because of the definitions or lack of definitions of family and household head in censuses and surveys. It is difficult to determine the degree of inaccuracy of census data on woman headed households. Area or regional surveys as well as in depth anthropological studies suggest that in certain areas and countries the incidence of woman headed households is higher and their economic status more marginal than officially reported. The data on woman headed households provide evidence however fragmentary that woman headed households are not undifferentiated and should not be treated as such. Some of the more important considerations in determining the different type of woman headed households -- considerations that are closely linked to the economic status of these households -- are: de jure and/or de facto female headship; the social context of female headship; the marital status of the woman head; access to productive resources and income; and size and compotition.

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