IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gme/wpaper/202312015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Households with Female Heads Really Poorer?

Author

Listed:
  • Alya Sakinah Zahirah

    (Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics & Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada)

  • Muhammad Ryan Sanjaya

    (Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics & Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada)

Abstract

The share of poor families with female heads of household is steadily increasing, from 14.41% in 2013 to 16.72% in 2019. This is in contrast to the declining poverty rate over the same period. We examine whether families with female heads of household tend to be less prosperous than those with male household heads using the wealth index constructed from the 2019 National Socioeconomic Survey data. In contrast to the hypothesized feminization of poverty theory, we find that households with female heads are more likely to be wealthier than those with male heads, even after controlling for sociodemographic factors of household heads as well as household characteristics. This finding sheds some light on the hypothesized feminization of poverty theory in the context of developing Asian countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Alya Sakinah Zahirah & Muhammad Ryan Sanjaya, 2023. "Are Households with Female Heads Really Poorer?," Gadjah Mada Economics Working Paper Series 202312015, Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada.
    • Handle: RePEc:gme:wpaper:202312015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econworkingpaper.feb.ugm.ac.id/download/working_paper/202312015.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2023
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert D. Plotnick, 2009. "Childlessness and the Economic Well-being of Older Americans," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 64(6), pages 767-776.
    2. Amartya Sen, 1981. "Issues in the Measurement of Poverty," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Steinar Strøm (ed.), Measurement in Public Choice, pages 144-166, Palgrave Macmillan.
    3. Nina Lisanty & Hiromi Tokuda, 2015. "Comprehending Poverty in Rural Indonesia:An In-depth Look inside Paddy Farmer Household in Marginal Land Area of Banyuasin District, South Sumatra Province," International Journal of Social Science Studies, Redfame publishing, vol. 3(3), pages 129-137, May.
    4. Dreze, Jean & Srinivasan, P. V., 1997. "Widowhood and poverty in rural India: Some inferences from household survey data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 217-234, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van de Walle, Dominique, 2011. "Lasting welfare effects of widowhood in a poor country," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5734, The World Bank.
    2. Akanksha Srivastava & Sanjay Mohanty, 2012. "Poverty Among Elderly in India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 109(3), pages 493-514, December.
    3. Braun, Sebastian T. & Stuhler, Jan, 2024. "The economic consequences of being widowed by war: A life-cycle perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    4. Frieda Vandeninden, 2010. "Social Pensions in Europe: The Aim, The Impact and The Cost," CREPP Working Papers 1007, Centre de Recherche en Economie Publique et de la Population (CREPP) (Research Center on Public and Population Economics) HEC-Management School, University of Liège.
    5. Oginni, Ayodeji & Ahonsi, Babatunde & Ukwuije, Francis, 2013. "Are female-headed households typically poorer than male-headed households in Nigeria?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 132-137.
    6. Manoj K. Pandey, 2013. "Elderly's Health Shocks and Household's Ex-ante Poverty in India," ASARC Working Papers 2013-01, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    7. World Bank, 2001. "Risk Management in South Asia : A Poverty Focused Approach," World Bank Publications - Reports 15449, The World Bank Group.
    8. Bhaumik, Sumon Kumar & Gang, Ira N. & Yun, Myeong-Su, 2006. "Ethnic conflict and economic disparity: Serbians and Albanians in Kosovo," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 754-773, December.
    9. Seebens, Holger, 2008. "One size fits all? Female Headed Households, Income Risk, and Access to Resources," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 43609, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    10. Marcel Fafchamps & Agnes R. Quisumbing & IFPRI, 2006. "Household Formation and Marriage Markets," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-039, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    11. Wineman, Ayala & Jayne, Thomas S., 2017. "Intra-Rural Migration And Pathways To Greater Well-Being: Evidence From Tanzania," Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research Papers 261669, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security (FSP).
    12. Joshi, Shareen, 2004. "Female Household-Headship in Rural Bangladesh: Incidence, Determinants and Impact on Children's Schooling," Center Discussion Papers 28424, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    13. Klasen, Stephan & Lechtenfeld, Tobias & Povel, Felix, 2015. "A Feminization of Vulnerability? Female Headship, Poverty, and Vulnerability in Thailand and Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 36-53.
    14. Olabimtan Adebowale & Dr Ralitza Dimova, 2016. "Does access to formal finance matter for welfare and inequality? Micro level evidence from Nigeria," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 072016, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    15. Stephan Klasen & Simon Lange, 2015. "Targeting Performance and Poverty Effects of Proxy Means-Tested Transfers: Trade-offs and Challenges," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 231, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Brown, Caitlin & Calvi, Rossella & Penglase, Jacob, 2021. "Sharing the pie: An analysis of undernutrition and individual consumption in Bangladesh," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    17. Ahmad Fahme Mohd Ali & W.A. Amir Zal & Nurhanan Ab. Hamid & Tengku Fauzan Tengku Anuar & Hafizi Mat Salleh & Siti Asma Md. Rasdi, 2022. "The Moderating Effect of zakāh Distribution on the Economic Well-being of the Poor: An Analysis in Kelantan, Malaysia التأثير المعتدل لتوزيع الزكاة على الرفاهية الاقتصادية للفقراء: تحليل من ولاية كلان," Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics, King Abdulaziz University, Islamic Economics Institute., vol. 35(1), pages 75-97, January.
    18. Jean O. Lanjouw & Peter Lanjouw & Branko Milanovic & Stefano Paternostro, 2004. "Relative price shifts, economies of scale and poverty during economic transition," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 12(3), pages 509-536, September.
    19. Annamaria Milazzo & Dominique Walle, 2017. "Women Left Behind? Poverty and Headship in Africa," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 1119-1145, June.
    20. Gero Carletto & Alberto Zezza, 2006. "Being poor, feeling poorer: Combining objective and subjective measures of welfare in Albania," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(5), pages 739-760.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender; feminization of poverty theory; wealth index;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B54 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Feminist Economics
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gme:wpaper:202312015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dwi Rahmadi Nur Fathoni (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deugmid.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.