1154535 (1)

Female-Headed Households and Female-Maintained Families: Are They Worth Targeting to Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries?
Author(s): Mayra Buvini and Geeta Rao Gupta Source: Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Jan., 1997), pp. 259-280 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1154535 . Accessed: 16/10/2013 14:13
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Female-Headed Households and Female-MaintainedFamilies: Are They Worth Targetingto Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries?*
MayraBuvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

International Center for Research on Women
The subjectof targetingpublic-and private-sectorprogramsto femaleheaded households in developingcountries in order to attack poverty and social disadvantageis controversialand lacking in rigorous evidence. One argumentis that women who head households are worthy of special attentionbecause they are triplydisadvantaged: they experience the burdens of poverty, gender discrimination,and absence of supportas heads of household.' The opposite argumentis that female headship should not be used as the main targetingcriterion because female headshipis not always correlatedwith poverty, there are practical difficultiesin identifyingde facto headship, and there may be perverse incentive effects as a result of targetingbenefits or services to single mothers-that is, it may promote ratherthan discouragesingle motherhood.2 Unfortunately, there are few documented experiences of programsthat targetfemale headshipand their consequences. Most of the project experience has taken place in the nongovernmentalsector, is small in terms of project size and coverage, and has not been evaluated. In this article we address the above controversy by first discussing the issues relatedto the definitionand measurementof female headship and the importanceof the concept for development policy, and then undertakinga systematic review of the empirical evidence on the relationbetween female headshipand poverty. If, on average, female-headedhouseholds are in fact poorer than other households, headship should seriously be considered as a potentially useful criterion for targetingantipoverty interventions, especially in developing countries where means testing is not feasible. Second, we examine potential costs and benefits of targetingfemale headship and review
? 1997by The Universityof Chicago.All rightsreserved. 0013-0079/97/4502-0001$01.00
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the experience of Chile, one of the few countries that has targeted female headshipthroughgovernmentintervention(the others are Colombia, Honduras, and India), and the only one that has evaluation data available. We use the analysis of the project experience along with a review of the empirical evidence to answer the question of the desirabilityand efficiency of targetingfemale headship to reduce poverty in developingcountries. The Natureof FemaleHeadship Definitions The problemswith definingand measuringfemale-headedhouseholds are well known. First, countriesuse differentand thereforeoften noncomparabledefinitionsof both the terms "household" and "head of household" in their census instruments. Second, there is ambiguity inherent in the term "head of household" when the assignment of headshipis left to the judgmentof householdmembers.Membersmay use different criteria to make this assignment, renderingin-country comparisons invalid. Reliable identificationof female-headedhouseholds is furthercompoundedby the fact that female headship may be a transitoryphenomenon in the life cycle of families. The third and perhaps most serious limitationis that the term "head of household" is not neutral.It is loaded with additionalmeaningsthat reflect a tradiunits with a patriartional emphasison households as undifferentiated chal system of governance and no internalconflicts in the allocation of resources.3 and measurement In response to these definitional problems,some experts arguefor using more specific languagethan the term "femaleheaded household"-language that would be more effective in capturthat are economicallydependent ing the wide rangeof familystructures on women. Additionalterms suggested include "female-maintained," "female-led," "mother-centered,""single-parent,"or "male-absent" rather than "female-headed" to more accurately describe different household structuresand family situations. It is also helpful to distinguish between female-headed households (residential units) and fefamilies(kinshipunits) because a female-headedfammale-maintained ily may reside as a subfamilyin a larger,often male-headedhousehold. the concept of female headshipis undoubtedlyuseDisaggregating ful for the purposes of researchand for advancementof knowledge in this field. However, for purposes of policy and programimplementahousehold"and the conditionof femaletion, the term "female-headed maintainedfamilies within male-headedhouseholds are practical, albeit imperfect, proxies for the whole range of family structures and households in which women are the primaryprovidersfor their families.
Mayra Buvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta
261
Prevalence The importanceof the concept of female-headedhouseholds arises, in part, from the sheer numbersof such households in both developing and industrial societies. As table 1 shows, in the 1980s, 14% of all households in Indonesia, up to 45%of all households in Botswana and Barbados, and 31% of households in the United States were headed by women. In developing countries, female headshipis more frequent in Latin America and the Caribbeanand in sub-SaharanAfrica and is less frequent in Asia and the Near East. However, its prevalence is increasing in the different regions, as table 2 reveals, and therefore this rise can no longer be attributedto isolated circumstances or to any specific culturalor ethnic heritage. Whichfactors foster the rise of female-headedhouseholds?There are demographicand social antecedents that occur with increasing frequency in today's societies. There is sex-specific migration, resultingin "left-behind"female heads in the place of origin, as in rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa, or the creation of households headed by in the women migrant place of destination, as often happens in large cities in Latin America; marital disruption and increases in unpartnered adolescent fertility (evident in both Latin America and subSaharanAfrica); erosion of extended family systems and traditional support networks, which leaves single mothers and widowed women
TABLE 1
PERCENTAGE OF HOUSEHOLDS
HEADED BY WOMEN IN 1980s

IN SELECTED COUNTRIES
Country Botswana(1981) Barbados(1980) Malawi* Cuba(1981) Ghana* Venezuela (1981) Honduras* Chile (1982) Bangladesh(1981) S. Korea (1980) Indonesia(1980) United States (1985)
% 45 45 29 28 27 22 22 20 17 15 14 31
SOURCE.-UnitedNations, Demographic Yearbook (New York: United Nations, 1989).

* Late 1970s data.
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Economic Development and Cultural Change

TABLE 2
OF HOUSEHOLDS TRENDSIN PERCENTAGE HEADED BY WOMEN(de Jure)
(All AvailableData) Country Demographicsurvey data: Asia:

Indonesia 1976 15.5 1987 13.6
Earlier Date
Later Date
Sri Lanka Thailand Latin Americaand Caribbean: Colombia DominicanRepublic Ecuador Mexico Peru* Trinidadand Tobago MiddleEast and North Africa: Morocco Sub-Saharan Africa: Ghana Sudan Census data:
Asia:
1975 1975 1976 1975 1979 1976 1977/78 1977 1979/80 1960 1978/79 1971
1971
15.7 12.5 17.5 20.7 15.0 13.5 14.7 22.6 11.5 22.0 16.7 23.5
16.3
1987 1987 1986 1986 1987 1987 1986 1987 1987 1987 1989/90 1991
1980
17.8 20.8 18.4 25.7 14.6 13.3 19.5 28.6 17.3 29.0 12.6 25.7
14.2
Hong Kong
Indonesia
Japan Latin Americaand Caribbean: Brazil

Costa Rica Panama Peru Uruguay Venezuela Sub-Saharan Africa: Burkina Faso Cameroon Mali Korea Philippines
1980
1980 1970
15.2
14.7 10.8
1990
1990 1990
17.0
15.7 11.3
1980
1984 1980 1981 1975 1981 1975 1976 1976
14.4
17.5 21.5 22.1 21.0 21.8 5.1 13.8 15.1
1989
1992 1990 1991 1985 1990 1985 1987 1987
20.1
20.0 22.3 17.3 23.0 21.3 9.7 18.5 14.0
SOURCE.-Judith Bruce, CynthiaB. Lloyd, Ann Leonard,et al., Families in Focus: New Perspectives on Mothers, Fathers, and Children (New
York: PopulationCouncil, 1995).
NOTE.-De jure = "recognized" household headship. * De facto = headship on day of interview.
on their own (in Bangladesh, Egypt, and India, among others); and sex ratio imbalancescaused by war deaths and civil conflicts, which result in a surplusof females in native or refugee populations. There are two trends associated with economic change that may contribute further to the increasing prevalence of female headship. The first trend is the disruptionof traditionalsystems of patriarchal
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governance,which weakens explicit and implicitcontractsthat enforce income transfers from fathers to mothers and their children. Nancy Folbre states that this detachmentof children from fathers' earnings is a convergingissue for women in many developingand industrialized countries, and is more often than not indicative of a forced independence from male wages ratherthan women's choice not to depend on men's earnings.4 As evidence of this trend, the great majority of women and mothers in the United States were dependent on men in the 1940s, while only a minority(under25%)were exclusively relying on male earnings in the 1980s.5The second trend is declining real household income and the increasingpoverty usually associated with economic crises, "forcing" men to relinquishresponsibilityfor family maintenance.In the Latin Americanand Caribbeanregion, for example, feminist researchers have hypothesized that the economic crisis of the eighties and the loss of gainful employment among men have increasedthe numbersof households that depend only or primarilyon women's income. Households The Povertyof Female-Headed The relation between female headship and poverty and the consequences of female headship for child welfare have been reasonably well studied. We reviewed informationfrom 65 studies carried out in the past decade. Sixteen were done in Africa, 17 in Asia, and 32 in Latin Americaand the Caribbean.Self-reportand the physical absence of men as a result of migration,death, divorce, or abandonmentwere the most commonlyused definitionsof female headshipin the studies. Some studies distinguishedbetween de facto and de jure female headship, and a few examined the situation of functional families headed by women residing in largerhouseholds.6 Relationship to Poverty Of the 65 studies reviewed, 61 examined the relation of female headof the 61 studies found, by using a variety ship to poverty. Thirty-eight of poverty indicators(total or per capita household income, mean income per adult equivalence, total or per capita consumptionexpenditures, and access to services and ownershipof land and assets, among others), thatfemale-headedhouseholdsare overrepresentedamongthe poor. Fifteen other studies found that poverty was associated with certain types of female heads, or that the association emerged for certain poverty indicators. Only eight of the 61 reports (13%)showed no empirical evidence for the hypothesis of the greater poverty of female-headedhouseholds. Why are they poor? The review of the evidence that shows a positive association between female headship and poverty points to three sets of factors that determinethe greaterpoverty of these house-
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holds. They emerge, respectively, from characteristicsof household composition, the gender of the main earner, and the unique circumstances of being a female-headedhousehold. First, female-headed households, despite their smaller size in comparisonwith other types of households, often carrya higherdependency burden.That is, they tend to contain a higherratio of nonworkers to workers than do other households, as supportedby data from rural Botswana,7Malawi,8Brazil,9Mexico, and Peru.'o This type of household composition would not necessarily lead to poverty, however, if the household received child-supportpayments from absent fathers, as is the case with some of the left-behindruralfemale heads in India who receive adequate remittances." The poverty of femaleheaded households thus reflects a disruption of traditional systems of family governance that enforced income transfersfrom fathers to children.'2 Second, the main earnersof female-headedfamilies are by definition women, who have lower averageearningsthan men, fewer assets, and less access to remunerative jobs and productive resources such as land, capital, and technology. This gender-relatedeconomic gap contributes to the economic vulnerabilityof female-headedfamilies. In Brazil,female-headedhouseholdshave a 30%to 50%greaterchance of being in poverty than do male-headedones, not because they have more childrenor fewer adults but because the female head earns less. She earns more than other women do but less than men.13 The lower earningpower of women who head households was a function of their lower education in Perul4 and of their restricted access to land and credit in El Salvador15 and in villages in India.16 This second set of factors, then, emerges from gender differencesin access to economic opportunities.It follows that the implementationof policies that exfor all women should reduce the vulnerapandeconomic opportunities bility to poverty of female-headedhouseholds. famiThird, reasons for the greaterpoverty of female-maintained lies cannot be attributedto household structure factors per se, or, strictly speaking, to gender-relateddifferences in economic opportunity, but to the combinationof both. That is, there is an independent effect of female headship on household economic vulnerabilitythat cannot be reduced to the characteristicsof women or the household. This effect, in turn, can operate throughthree differentmechanisms. First, women who are heads of householdsand have no other (female) adulthelp also have to fulfillhome productionor domestic roles. They therefore face greater time and mobility constraintsthan male heads and other women do, which can result in an apparent"preference"
for working fewer hours for pay, for "choosing" lower-paying jobs that are nevertheless more compatible with child care, and for spending more for certain services, such as water and housing, because
265
they cannot contribute time to offset transactioncosts. C. Chipande describes how female farmers in Malawi were inclined to limit their labor time in farm activities due to a heavy commitmentto domestic chores." CatherineBerheide and MarciaSegal, and SherrieKossoudji and Eva Mueller,reportsimilarfindings.1" They found thatresponsibility for childrenand housekeepingmade it difficultfor female heads to opt for regularor off-farmlabor activities to increase their earnings. Second, women who head households may encounterdiscrimination in access to jobs or resources beyond that which they encounter because of their gender, or may themselves, because of social or economic pressures, make inappropriatechoices that affect the household's economic welfare. In Chile, for instance, MarianaSchkolnik found that female heads had significantlyless access to government subsidies than did other heads." Third, female heads may have a history of prematureparenthoodand family instabilitythat tends to perpetuate poverty to succeeding generations. There are many social and economic situations that predispose certainfamilytypes to poverty, and these may be highlyculturebound. For instance, out-of-wedlock teenage childbearingis a major predisposing factor in many Latin Americanand in some African countries, while in India early widowhood is far more important. Researchers need to investigate the relative contributionof the differentfactors in generatingfemale-headedfamilies and in determiningtheir poverty in order to design appropriateand effective interventions. The exceptions. Not all householdsthat reporta female head are poor, and some of the measures used underestimatethe poverty of female headship. Among the exceptions to a destiny of poverty are women with economic means who choose to head families, and where there is a traditionof women living apartfrom husbandsand the older generation. Examples of the latter include wives of polygamous men who set up independenthouseholds in West African societies, such as in the Ivory Coast,20and women who inheritland and the right to set up a household throughmatrilinealdescent, such as the Minangkabau of west Sumatra,Indonesia.21 The opposite is also true, and in societies where the norm is to have men headingfamilies, female-headedfamilies carry a particularly high risk of poverty. These include households and Kenya,23or by abandoned headed by single mothers in Brazil22 women in Bangladesh.24 There is heterogeneityin the situationof female heads who have been left behind by the economic migrationof their partner, and this heterogeneitydepends both on the generosity and regularityof remittances as well as on the situation of the left-behind household. In impoverishedruralareas-such as southernBotswana, where the returns from agricultureare uncertain-men's remittances, if any, do not begin to offset the costs of labor required to maintain adequate
266
productivity,and female-headedfarm households tend to be the poorest.25 However, in other, more promising rural situations, femaleheadedfamilieswith access to resourcesor remittancescan sometimes be better off than male-headedones. Examples include female-headed left-behindfemale heads of farmhouseholdsin Kenya,26 cash-cropping in India, and female-headed and Uttar Pradesh28 Trivandrum District27 households of the Teba tribe in Malawi.29 Methodological considerations. It is likely that some of the exceptions are a result of the fact that the more sophisticatedconsumpmeasuresand adult-equivalence scales underestimate tion-expenditure the poverty of female headship, especially when poverty is measured The representationof female-headedhouseholds intergenerationally. diminishes when per capitaratherthan total household the among poor measures are used, because female-headed or income expenditure smaller than other households.30 The on households are, average, the is whether per capita adjustmentwipes out the poverty question with female associated effect headship,and the answer is yes when the use studies per capitaconsumptionexpendituremeasuresof household answeris no, however, when per capitaincome or asset The poverty.31 Across regions, 13 out of 15 studies that used these are used. measures that there was a disproportionaterepresentationof measures found female-headedhouseholds among the poor.32 Because of a number of properties (they are less distorted by and seasonal variabilityin earningsand better income underreporting reflectthe use of savings), consumptionexpenditureis vastly preferred over income in the developmentliteratureas a measure of well-being and poverty.33 Most poverty experts would therefore give more credence to the findingsof studies that used the per capita consumptionexpenditure indicator (that showed no poverty effect for femaleheaded households) rather than the per capita income indicator. However, unlike income, consumptionindicatorsare likely to be subthe poverty of femaleject to gender biases that result in underrating headed households because of differences in respondents' access to and because these indicatorsdo not pick up differences in information dimenboth leisure available to households and the intergenerational sion of poverty. First, female heads of smaller households, since they are often both chief earnersand housewives, are likely to reportmore accurately household consumptionexpendituresthan are wives in larger houseon household, and espeholds who may not have completeinformation the consumptionof the This tends inflate to cially male, expenditures. smaller household and understatethat of male- or female-maintained This potential bias will be less relevant in joint-headedhouseholds.34 societies, some in East and Southeast Asia, where wives have traditionally controlled household expenditures, and continue to do so.
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the legacy in termsof capturing Second, and perhapsmore significantly of poverty, consumptionmeasuresmay be augmentedsubstantially by the time women and childrenspend in the productionof home goods, especially in farm households, at the expense, however, of time devoted to other criticalactivities, includingchild care and income generThe substitutionof work ation for women and schoolingfor children.35 for leisure to achieve a certainlevel of consumptionin female-headed households may signify the perpetuationof poverty into the next generation. More than half of the studies we reviewed that examined the consequences of female headshipfor childrenshowed that childrenin female-headed households worked more often than did children in other households, with potentiallynegative long-termimplicationsfor their well-being.36 In support of the hypothesis that consumption-expenditure measures may be subject to genderbiases, C. Lloyd and A. Brandondocument the economic disadvantage of female-headed households in Ghanathroughother indicators.These householdshave less access to land, credit, and education; have higher dependency ratios; and depend more on outside support;and memberswork significantlylonger hours.37 C. Johnson and B. Rogers similarlyfound that female-headed households in the DominicanRepublic, althoughnot overrepresented amongthe poor, were moreeconomicallyvulnerablethan male-headed households because of a greater dependence on income transfers in the form of gifts and remittancesfrom others.38And SandraRosenhouse reportsthat in Peru, in the poorermultiple-earner families, both male- and female-headed households are equally disadvantaged in terms of per capita consumption,but the work burdenof female heads is significantlyhigherthan that of male heads, potentiallyresultingin long-termcosts for women and children.39 Many of the studies show that female-headedhouseholds have a higher dependency burdenthan other households do, which is correlated with poverty. A problemwith per capita indicatorsof household economic status is that they fail to capturedifferentdependencyratios across headshiptypes. Adult-equivalency scales, which are often used to adjusthouseholdconsumptionby size and compositionof the household, further mask dependency burdens by assigning an adult male equivalence of less than one to females and children, on the assumption that their consumptionneeds are less than those of men.40 Using per capita indicators and, in particular,adult-equivalencyscales will distort poverty assessments if high dependency burdens increase households' current and future poverty by increasing mothers' and children's work efforts to achieve a certain level of consumption. These per capita indicatorswill yield artificiallylow poverty risks for households with high proportions of dependent children relative to adults, such as those headed by women.
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Economic Development and CulturalChange
Because of these problems with poverty indicators, a variety of indicators,ratherthan only one measureof well-beingand poverty, is advisable when assessing the condition of female-headedhouseholds. Equallyas revealingof well-beingas income and expenditureare social income measures, such as access to social services and subsidies, and informationon the determinantsof income, such as assets and access to credit marketsand agricultural technologies.41 The Transmissionof Disadvantage A most persuasive rationalefor targetingfemale headshipis to reduce the transmissionof poverty into the next generation.In the 29 studies reviewed, when the indicators of disadvantageare children's nutritional status and school performance, female headship sometimes seems to protect against poverty, and at other times to reproduce it. There is a slight bias towardfindingmore protective effects in Africa, but recent studies report this phenomenonalso in Latin America and the Caribbean.42 Children'snutrition. There are varying results from the studies that have examined nutritionaleffects on children. Of the 18 studies that examined these effects, roughly half reported positive and half reported negative effects of female headship. S. Kumar's study from Zambiaand M. Garcia'sstudy fromthe Philippinesfound that a greater percentage of children in female-headed households were malnourished comparedwith childrenfrom other households.43 CharlesWood found that the survival probabilities of children in female-headed households in Brazil were significantlylower than those of childrenin This difference in child mortalitywas not male-headedhouseholds.44 the result of female headship per se, but rather was the outcome of differencesin race, region, education,housingquality, monthlyhouseindicators.Similarly,Brazilhold income, and other standard-of-living ian children of female-headedhouseholds were more likely to work, but this was accountedfor by characteristicsassociated with the lower income and living standardsof households with female heads.45 The studies found that when controllingfor variables associated with female headship, the negative effect of headshipon child welfare disappeared.This outcome implies that, at least in Brazil, female headship per se does not add extra burdens to being a woman or being black, and would thereforeargue for less targetedmeasures to attack the intergenerational poverty transmittedby female headship. Studies that report a positive effect of female headship on child nutritionfind this effect to be more significantin poorer than in betteroff households.46The more credible explanation for the positive effect is that there are gender differences in expenditure preferences in (whetherthis preferenceresults from natureor nurtureis immaterial terms of policy).47 This explanationrests on the notion that a woman's
269
greater preference to invest in children is more easily realized in a household she heads, where there are no conflicts or negotiationswith a male partnerover the use of household resources. This preference appears in poorer rather than in better-off families, either because investmentsin childrenyield greaterreturnsat lower levels of income or because there are fewer competingalternativeinvestmentsin lowerthan in higher-incomehouseholds.48 The gender-preference explanation receives support from research that finds similar effects when analyzing unearned income of mothers who are not female heads.49 An alternative explanation is that more competent mothers have more success at earninga higher proportionof family income, living on their own, and caring for their children. Children's education. Of the studies that examined the impact of female headship on children's education, four reported a positive effect: that children's education is more likely to receive priority in female-headedhouseholds than in male-headedhouseholds."5 Six reported a negative effect: because of the lack of additionaladult labor and because of low income levels in households headed by women, childrenare often forced to drop out of school to assist in housework and child care." These results are not necessarily contradictory.It is more likely that they represent evidence of the conflict that women heads of household must face, that is, the need to use every available resource to survive versus a desire to invest in their children. The same can be arguedfor the observationof both protectiveand high-risk effects of female headship on child nutrition.That is, the protective effects from gender-related preferences are likely to break down with increasingimpoverishment. Overall, the evidence suggests that poor female-headed households prefer to invest scarce resources in children, which translates into increased child welfare relative to income. When women have access to insufficient income, they cannot act on their preferences sufficientlyto make up the difference.In this lattercase, the economic to the next generation.While deprivationthat they sufferis transmitted the primarymediationfor the reproductionof poverty appears to be economic, some evidence from Latin America suggests that the absence of fathersmay transmitsocial as well as economic disadvantages to the next generation,either directly by the fathers' absence or indirectly by affectingthe caretakingbehaviorof mothersand other childrearingagents.52
Targeting Female-Headed Households Anticipating Costs and Benefits
Under pressure to reduce both poverty and public expenditures, governmentstargetinterventionsto increase cost effectiveness and insure
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that assistance reaches the neediest. Using female headship as a targeting criterion is, in principle, attractive because of the association between female headship and poverty. Targeting these households may be especially useful when there are no other reliable ways to identify poor households and when their prevalence is not too high. There is logic to the argumentthat the more pervasive a problem, the greateris the case for resolving it with a universalprogram.53 But all targetinghas costs and benefits, for the poor as well as for the agency that finances targetingprograms. For the government or the agency that finances targetingprograms,the costs of targetinginclude the cost of the goods and services delivered to the poor, the amountof leakage to the nonpooras a result of errorsin the screening process, the administrativecosts of the program, political economy costs, and second-roundcosts or perverse incentive effects that are built into the natureof targetinginterventionsto some but not to all. Errors in screening female-maintainedhouseholds and families can arise from misidentifyingthe gender of the head or the poverty of the household. The former errors should be higher in terms of false negatives (i.e., failingto capturehouseholds that are classified as male headed when in reality they are female headed) than false positives. This is a result of the increasing numberof women who in actuality maintainhouseholds in developingcountriesbut are not recognized as doing so because of cultural prescriptions that identify the man as the main breadwinnerand household authority.54 Shifting the unit of famitargetingfrom female-headedhouseholds to female-maintained lies (i.e., kinship units residingon their own or in larger households) should reduce the number of false negatives. The number of false positives (or leakages to male-headedhouseholds) may nevertheless increase with time. This is because over time women may shift in and out of the status of family head (e.g., by changingtheir maritalstatus), and programsthat do not monitorbenefitsclosely can end up providing benefits to some male-headedhouseholds that were formerly femaleheaded. Programdesigners should examine the empiricalquestion of how easily the status of female headship may be altered. This ease shouldvary with the originsof female headship,women's physical and social mobility,and the life-cycle stage of the family. De facto headship should in theory be more subject to change than de jure headship. A second type of misclassification error occurs when femaleheaded households are used as a proxy for poverty households and there are leakages to nonpoorfemale-headedhouseholds. In this case, the numberof false positives (identifying as poor female-headedhouseholds that are not so) should decrease with the increasingproportion of female heads that are poor in the population. The likelihood of producing false negatives (failing to identify poor female-headed
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households) should increase as the proportionof female heads who are poor declines. Targeting female-headed households and families may produce significantbenefits, both direct and indirect, to participatingfamilies and to society. Targetingpoor female heads will produce direct benefits for women if the gross amount of the benefit or transferexceeds in a targetedinterparticipationcosts. The time costs of participating vention should be greater for these women than for men who head households or for women in male-headedhouseholds. In addition,participation costs arising from social mores may be higher for female heads than for other women (since in many cases a social stigma is attached to the condition of female headship). Targetingfemale headship may have larger benefits for children than targetingpoor maleheaded households with equal amounts of benefit, as the evidence reviewed on consequences of female headship for child well-being points out. As an indirect or second-roundbenefit, targetingfemale headship can increase the fairness of developmentinterventions. Another indirectbenefitis makingvisible the unrecognizedeconomic contributionof poor women. The costs to society of targetingfemale-maintained families can be as large as the benefits, and high anticipatedcosts are likely one of the main reasons why female headship has so seldom been targeted by governmentprograms.Any additionalscreening criterionimposes administrativecosts. Further, since targetingfemale-headedfamilies can imply excluding male-headedfamilies, the result could be significant political costs, both real and perceived. These costs may be substantiallylower, however, if female-headedfamilies are targeted with interventionsthat are specific to women, such as nutritionsupplementations for pregnantwomen, maternaland child health interventions, or trainingin female-specificoccupations. Politicalconsiderationssugthe more powerfulmale constitugest avoidingthe risk of antagonizing with resources that are not female-headed families ency by targeting as as female such housing subsidies, agricultural specific, perceived loans, food coupons, and cash transfers. In addition, it suggests that targetingwomen who head families may be less politically viable than targetingall women. These political considerationsdo not bode well for the long-term survival of initiatives that target female headship with significantdevelopmentresources. Perhaps the majorperceived cost of targetingfemale-maintained families is the potential of changing the way families behave in response to program incentives. Possible perverse incentive effects could include increasingthe prevalence of female-headedhouseholds. A dilemmamay arise for programsthat target female-headedfamilies on the rationaleof their poverty: do the short-termbenefits of poverty
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relief compensatefor the possible long-termincrease in the prevalence of female-headedhouseholds? TargetingFemale Headship in Chile In 1991, the governmentof Chile, throughits newly created Women's National Service (Servicio Nacional de la Mujer-SERNAM), chose as a prioritya programtargetingfemale headshipin order to increase A 2-year incomes, improve welfare, and fightgender discrimination."55 in five the around launched poor municipalities country pilot project provided 2,500 female heads with job training,housing improvement, child care (including educational programsfor the children), health services, and legal aid. It included some universal components, such as building infrastructurefor child care, as well as extending to all users the hours of operation of health clinics to accommodate the time constraints of working female heads. Female household heads in the pilot project had priorityaccess to these universal participating benefits. The projectincludedin the beneficiarypopulationhouseholds headed by women with childrenyounger than 14 as well as unwed or partnerless mothers and their children, even if the latter resided as subfamilies in larger households. The project included only a small and no cash transfers.It emphasizeda prosubsidy for transportation ductive ratherthan a welfare orientation,offeringno free handoutsor direct cash transfers and requiringwomen to devote significanttime to the project's trainingcomponent.It was financedby state and international donors and it was implementedthroughthe municipalities.56 The pilot project has now become a nationalprogram,and a priority programwithin the government'snew strategy to combat poverty. The project has been successful in targetingthe poor as well as female heads, with very few leakages to the nonpoorand women who are not de facto heads. In 1992we estimated the overall project costs in one of the municipalities(Conchali, in Santiago) to be $450 per woman per year, which is roughlysimilarto the cost of targetednutritional interventionsset at roughly$420per child per year for a complementary feeding program-the ProgramaNacional de Alimentaci6n A survey of half of the beneficiaries,carriedout in Complementaria.57 that full 91%of the projectparticipantshad per capita showed a 1992, the poverty line (poorest 30%), and 57% were below incomes family destitute (poorest 10%).Only 0.2% of the households fell among the Table 3 breaks down these results by municipality. The nonpoor.58 line used in the study was below the governmentpoverty line poverty set at the cost of two minimumfood baskets for the poor and one minimumfood basket for the destitute. Only one other government program(out of 11) ranks higherthan this projectin terms of targeting benefits to the poor with very few leakages to the nonpoor, as table 4 shows. For instance, at a similarcost, 69% of the participantsin the

TABLE 3
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OFFEMALE BYMUNICIPALITY: CHILE POVERTY TARGETING HEADSHIP PILOT PROJECT
(June1992; %)
Arica Destitute (1 decile) Poor (1-3 deciles) Nonpoor 55.4 93.2 6.8 Conchalf Santiago S. Antonio Coronel Total 62.1 91.3 8.7 43.4 79.2 20.8 61.0 94.1 5.9 63.1 95.4 4.6 57.0 90.7 9.3
PabloValenzuela,"Caracteristfcas de Pobrezade las Participantes SOuRCE.-Juan in the Pilot Planfor Female Heads en el Plan Piloto" (Povertyfeaturesof participants of Households),in De MujerSola a Jefa de Hogar:Genero,Pobrezay PoliticasPTiblicas female to head of household:Gender,poverty, and publicpolicies), (Fromunpartnered ed. M. E. Valenzuela,S. Venegas, and C. Andrade(Santiago:Women'sNational Service, 1994),p. 257.
PNAC were below the poverty line, and only 38%were in the poorest 20%of the per capitaincome distribution,while a full 81.4%of beneficiaries in the female headshipproject were among the 20%poorest.59 There were very few leakages of project benefits to women who were not de facto heads. To avoid screeningerrors, the project used a detailed operationaldefinitionof female headship, required significant time commitmentsfrom women, and encouragedsomethingakin to group solidaritymechanisms,where the participants themselves assumed responsibilityfor identifyingother female heads. The Conchali project, for instance, defined as female-headedhouseholds families
TABLE 4
TARGETING OFSOCIAL BYPERCAPITA INCOME CHILE PROGRAMS (1990) QUINTILES:
1 Welfarepensions (PASIS) Family subsidy (SUF) Familybenefit Unemploymentbenefit feeding (PNAC) Complementary Preschool Primaryschool School lunches (PAE) Housing
Sites and services
2 22.2 29.3 25.7 28.3 30.8 28.8 26.9 27.3 28.4

28.0
3 19.4 13.5 21.2 7.6 18.0 20.3 18.1 13.2 23.5

27.0
4 10.0 4.8 17.6 4.5 9.5 13.6 12.6 5.3 13.5

14.3
5 2.9 1.6 13.9 2.0 3.6 9.7 6.7 1.8 5.2

3.8
45.5 50.8 21.6 57.6 38.1 27.6 35.7 52.4 29.4

26.9
SENAME*
100.0
PabloValenzuela,"Caracteristicas de Pobrezade las Participantes SOuRCE.-Juan in the Pilot Planfor Female Heads en el Plan Piloto" (Povertyfeaturesof participants of Households),in De MujerSola a Jefa de Hogar:Gdnero,Pobrezay PoliticasPablicas female to head of household:Gender,poverty, and publicpolicies), (Fromunpartnered ed. M. E. Valenzuela,S. Venegas, and C. Andrade(Santiago:Women'sNational Service, 1994),p. 258. * Data for 1987, Children'sNationalService.
274
with childrenunder 14 years of age that are maintainedby women, as well as unwed or partnerlessmothers and their children. The female head had to be underage 55. If a husbandor partnerwas present, he had to be infirm,unemployed,or unable to work. If the pilot project is successful in increasingthe income of poor women who are heads of households, it may increase the prevalence of female headshipby changingthe living arrangements of unpartnered mothers and their children now living in someone else's household. One in every five households in Chile has a subfamilyresidingin the More than household, somethingthatfew were awareof before 1990.60 half of these subfamiliesare headed by single mothers with children who would have the option of moving into an independenthousehold. This has been one of the maineffects of welfareprograms in the United it with childrento establishindependent States: enables single mothers If the U.S. effects are repeated in Chile, the project may residence.61 increase the prevalence of female-headedhouseholds without or even before alteringthe costs and benefits of marriagefor women. On the possibilitythat the projectcould have a perverseincentive effect, project implementersbelieve that the opposite may occur; that is, the project, by reducingwomen's feelings of stigmatizationand failure in partnerrelationshipsand by raisingtheir self-esteem, may increase the likelihood that female heads, especially the younger ones, will form stable partnerrelationships,reducingthe prevalence of female headship. Fortunately, because the project included baseline information on participantsand a control group of nonparticipants,over time it will be possible to answer the question of the project's impact on prevalence and disaggregatethe contributionsof residential changes and perverse incentives to possible changes in prevalence. Discussion The Chile experience shows that targetingfemale headshipcan be an efficient way of reaching the poor and it reinforces the association between female headshipand poverty found in the review of the evidence. But female headshipis heterogeneous,and not all female heads are poor; therefore, the decision to target should be preceded by an analysis of indicatorsrelated to the nature, rise, and vulnerabilityto poverty of female heads, includingmaritalchanges, fertility rates and the rise of unpartnered fertility, migrationtrendsby sex, and changing that mayjustify targeting female headship familyforms. Circumstances include economic crises and civil dislocations. Improvedmeasures of female family headship and careful analyses of costs and benefits as well as of the targetingenvironmentcan reduce screening errors and minimizeproject costs. Reported female headship is a crude indicator of actual female headship.A more refinedindicatorof female family maintenancetakes
275
into account the age and maritalstatus of the head (to gauge origins) and the presence and ages of dependents. In addition,attemptscan be made to identifysubfamiliesmaintained by women withinmale-headed households (as the governmentof Chile has done), and the targeted populationcan be expanded to cover families as well as households. The costs to the agency that finances such a project are administrative and political. Leakages to male-headedhouseholds and to nonpoor female-headedhouseholds can be reduced by using a set of indicators beyond reported headship to identify female family headship; devising and implementingpublic works and other interventionsdesigned to attract female participants(by including features such as child care facilities, flexible hours, transportation,and gender-aware implementingagencies) without specificallytargetingwomen; and deliveringfemale-specificpublicgoods. But the evidence shows that poor female heads also need services, jobs, and trainingthat are not femalespecific. Because targeting these benefits may antagonize the more powerful male constituency, such programs should anticipate and guard against potentially high political costs. Antipoverty programs that targetfemaleheads with resourcesor benefitscan, however, anticipate increases in the prevalence of female-headed households as a result of changes in the living arrangementsof female family heads who, as a result of the intervention, are able to afford independent housing. These programscan quantifythese predictableincreases to minimizepotentialpolitical backlash. There can be sizable direct and indirect benefits to participating families from antipoverty interventionsthat are targeted to poor female-headedfamilies. Such interventions can reduce the poverty of women and offer greaterwelfarebenefitsthanwould resultfromdirecting equal resources to male-headedfamilies. In addition,when female headshipadds additionalburdensto family poverty-burdens that are not entirely explained by household composition factors or gender differencesin economic opportunities-governments would do well to target female heads with antipoverty programs. The benefits of investing in poor women, for example, will not trickle down as well-if at all-to female heads. Female heads of familiesrequireinterventions that are directedspecificallyto them, such as income-earning opportunities and child-caresupport,as well as affirmative policies to prevent discriminationin access to markets and resources, aggressive health and education campaigns(e.g., services for pregnantteenagers), and the establishmentof effective social supportnetworks throughformal or informalorganizations. In answer to the question raised in the title of this article, we hold that targetingfemale headship to reduce poverty in developing countriesis worthwhilein theory, and that it can work in practice. But there are exceptions and constraintsfacingthe design and implementa-
276
tion of interventions that are targeted to poor female-headed families. We have developed our arguments on the basis of increasingly substantial research evidence on the situation of these families, but there is little documentation of experiences with targeting them. The next step is to invest more in experimental antipoverty interventions that target diverse categories of female-headed or female-maintained households (including public initiatives to promote the economic responsibility attached to fatherhood) and in sound evaluations of the experiences of both governments and nongovernmental organizations. Policyoriented research is far ahead of program and policy implementation. Still, significant research challenges remain, including the use of more discriminating measures of the poverty of female-headed families and an exploration of the origins of family formation and female headship, of the stability of female-headed households and female-maintained families, and of the mechanisms that predict the likelihood that femaleheaded families will transmit poverty to the next generation. Notes * This article was preparedfor the PopulationCouncil and International Centerfor Researchon WomenJoint Programon Female Headshipand Poverty in Developing Countries, with support from the Ford Foundation, the PopulationCouncil, and the United Nations Fund for PopulationActivities. We wish to thankMariaElena Valenzuela(SERNAM, Chile)for her substantive contributions to this report;JudithBruce (PopulationCouncil),Lawrence Haddad (IFPRI), and Joanne Leslie (UCLA) for their comments on earlier drafts of this article; Susan Kalish (PRB) for her editorial suggestions; and Linda Sturgeonfor her patience in preparingthis version of the article and earlierdrafts. 1. Idriss Jazairy, MohiuddinAlamgir, and Theresa Panuccio, The State RuralPoverty(New York:New York UniversityPress [forthe Interof World nationalFund for Agricultural Development], 1992).
2. Margaret E. Grosh, Administering Targeted Social Programs in Latin America: From Platitudes to Practice, World Bank Regional and Sectoral
Studies (Washington,D.C.: WorldBank, 1994). 3. Nancy Folbre, "Motherson Their Own: Policy Issues for Developing Countries"(paperpreparedfor the joint ICRW/Population Council series on the Determinantsand Consequencesof Female-HeadedHouseholds, 1990). 4. Ibid. 5. Sara McLanahan, "Family Structureand the Reproductionof Poverty," American Journal of Sociology 90, no. 4 (1985): 873-901.
Development and Cultural Change 21 (July 1983): 831-59.
6. A table summarizing these studies (sample size, methodology, definitions, and study findingsin terms of poverty conditionsand consequences) is containedin MayraBuvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta, "TargetingPoor WomanHeaded Households and Woman-Maintained Families in Developing Countries:Views on a Policy Dilemma"(paperprepared for thejoint ICRW/Population Council program on Female Headship and Poverty in Developing Countries, 1994). 7. Sherrie Koussoudji and Eva Mueller, "The Economic and DemographicStatus of Female-HeadedHouseholdsin RuralBotswana," Economic
277
8. CatherineW. Berheideand MarciaT. Segal, "LocatingWomenin the in Malawi" (paperpresentedat DevelopmentProcess: Female Small-Holders the meeting of the National Women's Studies Association, June 1989). 9. ThomasW. Merrickand MarianneSchmink, "HouseholdsHeaded by Women and Urban Poverty in Brazil," in Womenand Poverty in the Third World, ed. M. BuviniC,M. Lycette, and W. McGreevey (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983). the Poor:Is Headshipa Useful Con10. SandraRosenhouse, "Identifying cept?" Living StandardsMeasurementStudy WorkingPaper no. 58 (World Bank, Washington,D.C., 1989). 11. Leela Gulati, "Impacts of Male Migrationto the MiddleEast on the Family: Some Evidence from Kerala," WorkingPaper no. 76 (Center for Development Studies, Trivandrum, Kerala, India, 1983); Devaki Jain, "Women and Their Households-the Importanceof Women in Macro PoliCouncilSeminarIII, "Detercies" (paperpresentedatjoint ICRW/Population minantsof Households Headed or Maintainedby Women: Considerationsof the Lifecycle," New York, April 10-11, 1989). 12. Folbre (n. 3 above). 13. Ricardo Barros, Louise Fox, and Rosane Mendonqa, "FemaleHeaded Households, Poverty, and the Welfareof Childrenin Urban Brazil" Council programon Female (paper preparedfor the joint ICRW/Population Headshipand Poverty in Developing Countries, 1993). 14. MartaTiendaand Sylvia OrtegaSalazar,Female-HeadedHouseholds and ExtendedFamily Formationsin Rural and UrbanPeru (Madison:Center for Demographyand Ecology, University of Wisconsin, 1980). 15. Susana Lastarria-Cornheil, "Female Farmers and AgriculturalProduction in El Salvador,"Developmentand Change 19 (1988):585-615. 16. Jain. 17. G. H. R. Chipande, "Innovation Adoption among Female-Headed Households: The Case of Malawi," Development and Change 18 (1987): 315-27. 18. Berheideand Segal (n. 8 above); Koussoudjiand Mueller(n. 7 above). 19. MarianaSchkolnik,"Chile:Impactodel Gasto Social en los Hogares on female-headed con JefaturaFemenina"(Chile:Impactof social expenditure households), Draft PREALCWorkingPaper (Santiago,Chile, 1991). 20. Odile Frank,"The Childbearing Africa:StrucFamilyin Sub-Saharan ture, Fertility,and the Future"(paperpresentedat thejoint ICRW/Population Council SeminarI, "Concepts and Classificationsof Female-HeadedHouseholds: Implicationsand Applicationsfor National Statistics," New York, December 12-13, 1988). 21. LaurelK. Schwede, "FamilyStrategiesof LaborAllocationand DeciIslamicSociety: The Minangkabu of West Sumansion Makingin a Matrilineal tra, Indonesia" (Ph.D. diss., CornellUniversity, 1991). 22. Barroset al. (n. 13 above). 23. CarolynBarnes, "Differentiation by Sex amongSmall-ScaleFarming Households in Kenya," Rural Africana 15-16 (Winter/Spring 1983):41-63. 24. CarolSaldert,Female-HeadedHouseholds in RuralBangladesh, Reof Social Anthropology, portfrom a MinorResearchTask Force (Department 1984). University of Stockholm,January-February 25. Koussoudjiand Mueller(n. 7 above). 26. Eileen Kennedy, "The Significanceof Female-HeadedHouseholdsin Council SeminarII, Kenya" (paper presented at the joint ICRW/Population "Consequencesof Female Headshipand Female Maintenance,"Washington, D.C., February27-28, 1989).
278
27. Gulati(n. 11 above). 28. Jain (n. 11 above). 29. Eileen Kennedy and PaulinePeters, "Household Food Security and ChildNutrition:The Interactionof Income and Genderof Household Head,"
World Development 20, no. 8 (1992): 1077-86. and Development Review 6, no. 2 (1980): 189-223.
30. PravinVisaria, "Poverty and Living Standardsin Asia," Population
31. F. Louat, M. E. Grosh, and J. van der Gaag, "WelfareImplications of FemaleHeadshipin JamaicanHouseholds"(paperpresentedat the International Food Policy Research InstituteWorkshopon InterhouseholdResource Allocation:Policy Issues and ResearchMethods,Washington, D.C., February 12-14, 1992);CynthiaB. Lloyd and AnastasiaJ. Brandon, "Women's Roles Households:Poverty and GenderInequalityin Ghana" (paper in Maintaining Counciljoint program on FamilyStructure, for the ICRW/Population prepared Female Headship, and Poverty in Developing Countries, 1991);CatherineF. Johnsonand BeatriceLorge Rogers, "Children'sNutritionalStatusin FemaleHeaded Households in the DominicanRepublic," Social Science and Medicine 37, no. 11 (1993): 1293-1301. 32. Koussoudji and Mueller (n. 7 above); Farida E. Arif, "SelfEmploymentfor RuralDistressed Female Headed Households-a Case Study Labour of a Pilot Projectin Bangladesh"(paperpresentedat the International National Workshopon Female-HeadedHouseholds and the DeOrganisation in Development, New Delhi, velopmentof Guidelinesfor Their Participation April 26-28, 1988);Shahnaz Kazi and Bilquees Raza, "Households Headed (paperpreby Women:Income, Employment,and Household Organization" sented at the fifthannualgeneralmeetingof the PakistanInstituteof Development Economics, Islamabad,January4-6, 1989);Barros et al. (n. 13 above). 33. MartinRavallion, "Poverty Comparisons:A Guide to Concepts and Methods," Living Standards Measurement Study Working Paper no. 88 (WorldBank, Washington,D.C., 1992). 34. Susan Horton and BarbaraDiane Miller, "The Effect of Gender of Household Head on Food Expenditure:Evidence from Low-Income Households in Jamaica"(paperpresentedat the Conferenceon Family GenderDifference and Development, Economic Growth Center, Yale University, September4-6, 1989). 35. JudithBruceand CynthiaB. Lloyd, "Beyond FemaleHeadship:Family Research and Policy Issues for the 1990s," in IntrahouseholdResource
Allocation: Policy Issues and Research Methods, ed. L. Haddad et al. (Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, in press). 36. Merrickand Schmink(n. 9 above); RanjanaKumari,Women-Headed Householdsin RuralIndia (New Delhi:Radiant,1989);Schwede (n. 21 above);
Jeanne Frances I. Illo, Irrigation in the Philippines: Impact on Women and Their Households: The Aslong Project Case, Women's Roles and Gender Dif-
ferences in Development: Cases for Planners, Asia 2 (Bangkok:Population Council, 1988);Barrosetet al. (n. 13 above). 37. Lloyd and Brandon. 38. Johnson and Rogers. 39. Rosenhouse (n. 10 above). 40. Ravallion. 41. Nora Lustig, "MeasuringPoverty in Latin America: The Emperor Has No Clothes" (paperpreparedfor "Poverty:New Approachesto Analysis and Policy-a Symposium," International Institute for Labour Studies, Geneva, Noyember 22-24, 1993). 42. MayraBuvini" , J. P. Valenzuela,T. Molina, and E. Gonzalez, "The
279
Fortunes of Adolescent Mothers and Their Children:A Case Study on the Transmissionof Poverty in Santiago, Chile," Population and Development Review 18, no. 2 (1992):269-97; Patrice Engle, "MaternalWork and ChildCare Strategies in Peri-UrbanGuatemala," Child Development 62 (1991): 954-65, and "Influencesof Mother'sandFather'sIncomeon Children'sNutritional Status in Guatemala,"Social Science and Medicine 37, no. 11 (1993): 1303-12; Johnson and Rogers (n. 31 above). 43. Shubh K. Kumar, "Income Sources of the MalnourishedPoor in Food Policy ResearchInstituteWorkingPaper RuralZambia," International (Washington,D.C., 1991);MaritoGarcia, "Income Sources of the Malnourished Rural Poor in the Provinces of Arba Antique and South Cotabato in Food Policy ResearchInstituteWorkingPaper the Philippines,"International (Washington,D.C., 1991). Householdsand ChildMortality 44. CharlesH. Wood, "Women-Headed Council in Brazil, 1960-1980" (draftpresentedat the joint ICRW/Population SeminarII, "Consequencesof Female Headshipand Female Maintenance," Washington,D.C., February27-28, 1989). 45. Deborah Levison, "Family Compositionand Child Labor: Survival Strategies of the BrazilianPoor" (paperpresented at the annual meeting of the PopulationAssociation of America, March30-April 1, 1989). 46. Eileen Kennedy, "Effects of Gender of Head of Household on Women'sand Children'sNutritionalStatus" (paperpresentedat the workshop Food Policy on Women,International on the Effects of Policies and Programs Research Institute, Washington,D.C., January16, 1992);Engle, "Maternal Workand Child-Care Strategies";Buvinidet al., "The Fortunesof Adolescent Mothersand Their Children." 47. See Victor R. Fuchs, "Women's Quest for Economic Equality," Journal of EconomicPerspectives 3, no. 1 (1989):25-41. 48. Kennedy, "Effects of Genderof Head of Household." ResourceAllocation:An Inferen49. DuncanThomas, "Intra-Household tial Approach,"Journalof HumanResources 25, no. 4 (1990):635-64. 50. Dov Chernichowskyand ChristineSmith, "PrimarySchool Enrollment and Attendancein Rural Botswana" (WorldBank, Washington,D.C., Louat et al. (n. 31 above); Sylvia Chant, "Single-Parent 1979,mimeographed); Families: Choice or Constraint?The Formationof Female-HeadedHouseholds in Mexican Shanty Towns," Developmentand Change 16 (1985):63556; Gulati(n. 11 above). 51. Barroset al. (n. 13 above); Isabel Vial, EugeniaMuchnik,and Juliana Kain, "Evaluationof Chile's MainNutritionInterventionProgram"(University of Chile and Catholic University, Santiago, May 1988, mimeographed); Kumari(n. 36 above); Kazi and Raza (n. 32 above); Schwede (n. 21 above); Households DeborahS. DeGraffand RichardE. Bilsborrow,"Female-Headed and Family Welfarein RuralEcuador,"Journal of PopulationEconomics 6, no. 4, pp. 317-39. 52. Engle, "Influences of Mother's and Father's Income on Children's Buvinicet al., "The Fortunesof Adolescent NutritionalStatusin Guatemala"; Mothersand Their Children." 53. Irwin Garfinkeland Sara S. McLanahan,Single Mothers and Their Children(Washington,D.C.: Urban Institute, 1986). 54. Mayra Buvinid, Nadia Youssef, and B. von Elm, "Women-Headed Households: The Ignored Factor in Development Planning" (Washington, Centerfor Researchon Women, 1978). D.C.: International of SERNAMencounteredsignificantopposi55. Whilethe establishment tion from conservatives in the revived ChileanCongress, the programon fe-
280
male headship raised no eyebrows, in part because giving priority to poor female-headed householdswas a safe politicalalternative when comparedwith promotinglegislationon divorce or abortion. 56. M. Elena Valenzuela, Sylvia Venegas, and CarmenAndrade, eds., De MujerSola a Jefa de Hogar: G"nero,Pobrezay Politicas Pablicas (From female to head of household:Gender, poverty, and public poliunpartnered cies) (Santiago:Women's National Service, 1994). 57. Vial. 58. Juan Pablo Valenzuela, "Caracteristicasde Pobreza de las Participantes en el Plan Piloto paraJefas de Hogar"(Povertyfeaturesof participants in the Pilot Plan for Female Heads of Households), in Valenzuelaet al., eds. 59. Ibid. 60. Igacio Irarrizabaland Lucia Pardo,"Jefatura FamiliarFeminina,Estructuradel Hogar y Pobreza" (Female headship, household structure, and poverty), in Valenzuelaet al., eds. 61. Garfinkel and McLanahan(n. 52 above).
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Female-Headed Households and Female-Maintained Families: Are They Worth Targeting to Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries?

MayraBuvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

Economic Developmentand CulturalChange

Mayra Buvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

HEADED BY WOMEN IN 1980s

SOURCE.-UnitedNations, Demographic Yearbook (New York: United Nations, 1989).

Economic Development and Cultural Change

(All AvailableData) Country Demographicsurvey data: Asia:

Japan Latin Americaand Caribbean: Brazil

York: PopulationCouncil, 1995).

NOTE.-De jure = "recognized" household headship. * De facto = headship on day of interview.

Mayra Buvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

Economic Developmentand CulturalChange

Mayra Buvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

Economic Developmentand CulturalChange

Mayra Buvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

Economic Development and CulturalChange

Mayra Buvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

EconomicDevelopment and CulturalChange

Mayra Buvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

Economic Development and CulturalChange

Mayra Buvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

OFFEMALE BYMUNICIPALITY: CHILE POVERTY TARGETING HEADSHIP PILOT PROJECT

2 22.2 29.3 25.7 28.3 30.8 28.8 26.9 27.3 28.4

3 19.4 13.5 21.2 7.6 18.0 20.3 18.1 13.2 23.5

4 10.0 4.8 17.6 4.5 9.5 13.6 12.6 5.3 13.5

5 2.9 1.6 13.9 2.0 3.6 9.7 6.7 1.8 5.2

45.5 50.8 21.6 57.6 38.1 27.6 35.7 52.4 29.4

Economic Developmentand CulturalChange

MayraBuvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

Economic Development and Cultural Change

Development and Cultural Change 21 (July 1983): 831-59.

MayraBuvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

Economic Development and Cultural Change

30. PravinVisaria, "Poverty and Living Standardsin Asia," Population

MayraBuvinidand Geeta Rao Gupta

Economic Development and Cultural Change

a t L?I?t Am ior e erican

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