See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/223996320

Women Heading Households: Some More Equal than Others?

Article  in  World Development · March 1996

DOI: 10.1016/0305-750X(95)00149-7

CITATIONS READS

84 1,032

1 author:

Ann Varley
University College London
51 PUBLICATIONS   1,296 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Urban Land Tenure and Policies in a Developing World View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Ann Varley on 07 February 2018.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 W&d Development, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 505-520, 1996
Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Pergamon
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0305-750X/96 $15.00 + 0.00
0305-750X(95)00149-2

Women Heading Households: Some More Equal than

Others?

ANN VARLEY *
University College London, U.K.

Summary. - This paper explores the validity of the statement that one-third of the world’s households
are headed by women. It examines the implications of using economic criteria to define household head-
ship and of recent interest in woman-maintained households and concealed woman-headed households.
There is a danger of underplaying the diversity of woman-headed households and of marginalizing older
women by identifying woman-headed households with single mothers of dependent children.
Ultimately, too narrow a focus on particular household types undermines our ability to further a truly
gendered analysis of the household in development research and practice. Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier
Science Ltd

1. WOMAN-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS IN THE is one of exaggerating their numbers. This is undesir-

GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT LITERATURE
Woman-headed households occupy a special place
in the literature on gender, development and planning.
The need to pay attention to their needs has become
one of the fundamental principles of gender planning
(Moser, 1993; Young, 1993), partly because such
households challenge the assumption in “Western
planning theory . . that the household consists of a
nuclear family of husband, wife and two or three chil-
dren” (Moser, 1993, p. 15). The assumption that the
nuclear family household is “natural” is connected to
the belief that it is “natural” for women’s role in life to
be defined as (exclusively) that of wife and mother,
and challenging these associated ideas is therefore a
central part of the feminist project (Collier, Rosaldo
and Yanagisako, 1982; Harris, 1984; Moore, 1988).
Woman-headed households underline household het-
erogeneity and can be interpreted as the product of
women rejecting the patriarchal constraints on their
lives by “opting out” of the nuclear family (Tinker,
1990, p. 11). Consequently, they have even come to
dominate the literature in certain fields, such as the
international literature on gender and housing
(Varley, 1993). The argument for giving woman-
headed households special attention is strengthened
by the observed relationship between female headship
and poverty, which has prompted leading thinkers in
the field to advocate a progressive strategy of “anti-
poverty interventions that target female headship”
(Buvinic and Gupta, 1993, p. 24).
In this paper, I argue that current thinking on
woman-headed households runs three risks. The first
able because it may suggest that those advocating a
policy focus on woman-headed households lack con-
fidence in the validity of their case and therefore resort
to quantitative exaggeration to bolster what they sub-
consciously fear to be weak arguments. A second, and
more important, risk is that of inadvertently marginal-
izing certain groups of women - in particular, older
women. Gender planning discussion of woman-
headed households tends to underplay their hetero-
geneity by overemphasizing the single mother with
young dependent children. Rather than challenging
the notion that women’s “natural” role in life is moth-
erhood, this emphasis on single mothers is in danger
of reinforcing it. Finally, too narrow a focus on partic-
ular household categories undermines our ability to
develop a truly gendered analysis of the structure and
functioning of families and households. This will be
illustrated with reference to observed relationships
between gender, headship and household extension.
2. DEFINITIONS AND SOURCES
This paper explores a number of statements that
have been made about woman-headed households on
the basis of census data, and examines the implica-
*I am grateful to two anonymous referees for their very per-
ceptive comments on this paper, on which I have drawn
heavily in revising the conclusion (in particular), although
responsibility for the opinions expressed in the final version
clearly remains with me. Final revision accepted: September
2, 1995.

505
506 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
tions of different ways of defining household head-
ship. Since the point is to compare different
approaches, there is no particular need to establish a
priori definitions either of the household or of house-
hold headship. Indeed, some would argue that “the
boundaries and functions of households cannot be
delineated on a priori grounds but must be empirically
determined in every case” (Netting, Wilk and
Amould, 1984, p. xxiv; added emphasis). In this con-
text, feminist scholars and planners in particular find
themselves on the horns of a dilemma. On the one
hand, their exposure of conflicting agendas and
unequal power relations within the household has led
some to describe it as “a figment of the statisticians’
imagination” (Rogers, 1980, p, 64) and to call for its
rejection as the unit of economic analysis (Ashworth,
1992). The concept of the head of household - a
single decision maker representing members’ shared
interests - is regarded as particularly inadequate and
inappropriate, especially when this role is automati-
cally ascribed to the senior male (Bruce and Dwyer,
1988; Rosenhouse, 1989; Young, 1993). On the other
hand, concern about “the apparent trend of increasing
detachment of women and children from men’s
income” (Moser, 1993, p. 18) and labor markets in
which the odds seem to be almost universally stacked
against women (Stichter, 1990) leads to a demand for
more information about woman-headed households to
assist in targeting anti-poverty programs. A philo-
sophical rejection of the concept of head of household
is therefore accompanied by a pragmatic need for
more information about headship.
This dilemma can be illustrated by changing prac-
tices in some census agencies. Since the 1980s Italy
and Switzerland (following the example of France, the
United States and Canada) have ceased to use the tra-
ditional “head of household” concept. Their publica-
tions now offer a better disaggregation of family
households, but insufficient information about people
living alone for the overall percentage of households
headed by women to be calculated.’ Thus, rejection of
the head of household concept may reduce our ability
to discuss a group ascribed particular policy relevance
by many analysts.
For the sake of clarity, however: the concept of a
household informing this paper is that established by
international guidelines which broadly define a
household as a number of individuals who live together
and provide the basic needs for themselves, their children
and relevant others (i.e. those who live under one roof
and share a common pot) (Young, 1993, p. 114).
For the most part, “households are constituted round
relationships centred on marriage and parenthood” (p.
114), but both “family” and “nonfamily” (particularly
single person) households are considered.*
There are two major approaches to defining the
meaning of “head of household.” First, “a person who
controls the maintenance of the household - that is,
exercises the authority to run the household” (United
Nations, 1973, in Youssef and Hetler, 1983, p. 226).
Second, “the “main supporter” (chief earner) of the
household” (p. 226). In practice most census agencies
have allowed respondents to define who is the head of
their household, with the result that “definitions of. . .
household head are neither clear nor consistent”
(Chaney, 1984, p. 103). Consequently, “a major
impediment to studying . . female headship has been
the lack of quality data”3 (De Vos, 1994, p. 178). It is
generally argued that most census data reflect the con-
ventional assumption that a woman will be recognized
as household head only if she has no resident male
partner. In this paper, such “conventional” definitions
are compared with “economic” definitions focusing
on the person who earns or contributes the most to
household welfare (as indicated in the phrase
“woman-maintained” households).4
The distinction between “economic” and “conven-
tional” approaches to household headship also lies
behind much of the discussion about de facto as
opposed to de jure woman-headed households,
although different authors use different criteria to
define de facto woman-headed households. Some
stress the male partner’s temporary absence, for
example, as the result of migration in search of
employment opportunities; but in theory, men work-
ing elsewhere could continue to be the main contribu-
tor to the household budget. Others stress the male
partner’s limited contributions to the budget, thus mir-
roring the “economic” approach to defining headship
outlined above.
Much of the census information to which reference
is made is now rather old, coming from the mid-1980s
at the latest. This is because the most recent major
international survey of the census data available is the
United Nations 1987 Demographic Yearbook -
Special Topic: Household Composition (United
Nations, 1989).
3. A FLAWED ORTHODOXY?
In the literature on gender and development, the
argument that one-third of the world’s households are
headed by women has come close to achieving the sta-
tus of an orthodoxy. Its evolution can be traced in the
following quotations.
Around the world today, one out of three households is
headed, de facto, by a woman . in parts of Latin
America it is as high as 50 per cent (Tinker, 1976, p. 3 1).
United Nations figures estimate 30 percent of all house-
holds in developing countries are headed by women
(Chaney, 1984, p. 101).
It is estimated that today one-third of the world’s house-
holds are headed by women. In urban areas, especially in
 WOMAN-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS 507

Latin America and parts of Africa, the figure reaches
50% or more (Moser, 1989, p. 1802).
We know, for instance, that 30 to 50 per cent of the
world’s households are led by women (Sayne, 1991, p.
48).
. . data indicate that one out of every three women is opt-
ing out of patriarchal families to head her own household
(Tinker, 1990, p. 11).
. more than half the poor urban households [in large
cities of the Third World] have a woman as head of the
family (Muller and Plantenga, 1990, p. 11).
It is estimated that one third of the World’s households
are headed by women . in some rural (sic) areas of
Latin America and Africa, the number of female-headed
households reaches 50 per cent (United Nations, 1991b.
p. 40).
In at least 30 per cent of all households globally women
are the primary source of income (O’Connell, 1994, p.
67).
Almost one third of all the households on earth are
headed by women. At least one third of families have a
woman as their only income earner (UNICEF, Children
First!, Spring 1994, p. 13).
one of every three households in the world has a
woman as its sole breadwinner (1998 International Year
of the Family publicity on “The changing family struc-
ture”).
More than the orthodoxy of the idea that one-third
of the world’s households are headed by women, these
quotations demonstrate how by repeated citation the
figure is being chalked up further and further.
Moreover, the figure of one-third has now slipped
sideways into the discussion on woman-maintained
households (including those maintained solely by a
woman).5 In both cases it seems that this figure is now
becoming a minimum: the real figure, it is suggested,
is higher still.
It is difficult to identify the source from which the
original argument was taken. Tinker (1976) and
Chaney (1984) do not provide bibliographic refer-
ences to the source of their information.6 In her
ground-breaking paper on gender planning, Moser
(1989) cites a 1978 publication, Woman-headed
Households: The Ignored Factor in Development
Planning by Mayra Buvinii: and Nadia Youssef with
Barbara Von Elm. This study is important because the
authors used a methodology intended to overcome the
problems associated with census definitions of head of
household, but which still employed a conventional
rather than economic approach to defining household
headship. Census data on marital status were used to
define “potential” women heads of household as all
widowed, divorced or separated women and single
mothers, while the total number of “potential” heads
included these women plus all males who were ever
married or currently in consensual unions (Buvinic,
Youssef and Von Elm, 1978, pp. 37-38). The results
indicated that 18.5% of potential household heads in
developing countries were women (Table 1). Thus,
“Buvinic and Youssef s calculations . would sug-
gest a figure nearer a sixth for the Third World”
(Townsend and Momsen, 1987, p. 52).
It is unclear, therefore, how Buvinic ef al. (1978)
could be interpreted as indicating that one-third of the
world’s households are headed by a woman.’
Moreover, it is worth noting that their measure identi-
fies potential heads of family rather than household.
They exclude never-married women and men without
children living alone. As they point out, in developing
countries.“female heads are much more likely to be
family rather than mere household heads” (p. 38). We
may nevertheless query the effect of excluding never-
married people.* The existence of young unmarried
men living in single-person or other nonfamily house-
holds as a result of male labor migration in some parts
of the world, plus widespread cultural restrictions on
unmarried women doing the same, suggest that
including never-married men and women without
children would somewhat reduce the percentage of
potential woman-headed households reported.
More recently, a 1991 United Nations publication,
The World’s Women 19761990: Trendy cmd
Statistics, has started to be widely cited in comrection
with assertions that one-third of the world’s house-
holds are headed by women. Textually, this publica-
tion reports that:

Table 1. Potential women heads of household as aperxentage of all potential hetrds of household, various years 1%X-76*

Regional headings as in Regional headings as in

Buvinii- , Youssef and Von Elm (1978) 8 Nt Table 2 7G N:

North Africa + Middle East 17.1 15 Africa 21.5 22

Sub-Saharan Africa 21.5 18 Asia 18.7 25
Asia 19.0 14 Latin America + Caribbean 17.1 26
Caribbean 14.8 8
Central America 16.5 7
South America 17.5 I1
All 18.5 73 All I x.5 73

Source: Author’s calculations from data in Buvinit. Youssef and Von Elm (1978). pp. 87-95
*For definitions, see text.
fN = number of countries for which data are provided.
508 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Women-headed households . . make up over 20 per cent
of all households in Africa, the developed regions and
Latin America and the Caribbean (United Nations,
1991a, p. 17).
This statement, however, is supported by a graph
which has been reproduced elsewhere (O’Connell,
1994, p. 69). It is headed by the phrase “Up to 30 per
cent of households are now headed by women”
(United Nations, 1991a, p. 18) which presumably
refers to the values for major world regions depicted
on the graph (see Table 2). The only regional value
approaching 30% is for Latin America and the
Caribbean. Scrutiny of the figures for individual coun-
tries cited in this publication reveals, however, that the
percentages depicted on the graph are based on a
simple arithmetic average of all available values for
each region (Table 2). Consequently, the few thou-
sand households of the Caribbean islands of St Kitts
and Nevis (which, at 46% have the highest recorded
proportion of woman-headed households) are given
the same weight in determining the regional value as
the 25 million plus households of Brazil (14% of
which are recorded as being headed by a woman).
Table 2 also shows recalculated regional values
allowing for different national population sizes. For
the developed countries, the percentage of households
headed by women is slightly higher when recalcu-
lated. In other regions is it slightly lower, and giving
the correct weight to Latin American nations reduces
the regional value sharply by over 10 percentage
points. Overall, one in five households is recorded as
headed by a woman in countries for which the relevant
data are available. Excluding developed countries, the
overall figure is 15.0%, i.e. according to available
data, one in six households in developing countries is
headed by a woman, not one in three. (No figures were
available for some of the world’s largest populations:
China, India, the former Soviet Union, Nigeria, Egypt,
Mexico and Germany.)
Clearly, these calculations do not overcome the
limitations of census data that have been extensively
discussed elsewhere (Buvinic, Youssef and Von Elm,
1978; Youssef and Hetler, 1983; Massiah, 1983;
Chaney, 1984). Where respondents are asked to iden-
tify the head of household, there is likely to be bias in
favor of men in Middle Eastern and Latin American
societies, and possibly the opposite in sub-Saharan
Africa (Buvinic, Youssef and Von Elm, 1978).
Moreover, census data are very unlikely to deal ade-
quately with de facto women heads of household who
“maintain households . . but are not recognized as
such because of cultural prescriptions that identify the
man as the main breadwinner and household author-
ity” (BuviniC and Gupta, 1993, p. 11). The “potential
heads of household” method cannot solve this prob-
lem (Buvinic, Youssef and Von Elm, 1978, p. 37). As
such, the problem of defacto women heads of house-
hold may provide the answer to the question of why
arguments about one in three households being
headed by a woman are put forward when census data
indicate figures nearer one in five, and why the term
“woman-maintained” is regarded as describing the sit-
uation “more accurately” (O’Connell, 1994, p. 67). It
seems likely that the statements cited above are based
on an implicit formula:
one-fifth on conventional grounds + the rest on
economic grounds = one-third of all households.
This position deserves close attention, particularly
as a policy focus on woman-headed households is
often justified on the grounds of their being poorer
than others because of the additional difficulties
women and especially single mothers of young chil-
dren face in achieving a decent income.9 We may
question, however, whether the existence of large

Table 2. Percentage of households headed by women in major world regions, various years 1971X35*

Regional headings as in Percentage of all households headed by women, according to:

United Nations ( 1991 a) N UnitedNations (1991a) Author’s calculationst

Developed regions 20 23.6 24.5

Africa 16 20.8 19.1
Latin America + Caribbean 25 29.0 18.2
Asia + Pacific 17 14.0 13.0
All 78 22.7 20.5

Source: United Nations (199 1a), Table 2 and Chart 1.11, plus author’s calculations.
*No figures are shown on Chart 1.11 in United Nations (1991a) but those read from the graph coincide with the values shown
here, calculated as described in the text.
tValues recalculated using data from the same sources -mostly, the United Nations Demographic Yearbook 1987. In seven
cases the number of woman-headed households is estimated from the percentage given in United States Census Bureau pub-
lications (Chamie, 1985; Chaney, 1984; Newman, 1984) cited in United Nations (1991a, Table 2), plus the number of house-
holds for those countries given in the Demographic Yearbook. (In order to include the more recent household counts, the
assumption is made that the percentage of woman-headed households remained the same). In eight cases, both the percentage
and the number of households are from the US publications, and the number of woman-headed households is estimated from
these data.
 WOMAN-HEADED
numbers of woman-maintained households can justify
arguments about women heading one in three of all
the world’s households.
The first objection is that, whatever the criticisms
leveled at methodologies for identifying household
members in census or survey questionnaires,‘O the dif-
ficulties of identifying those who earn an income and
their contributions to the household budget are un-
deniably greater still. These difficulties are further
increased if it is accepted that definitions of economic
activity based on paid production overlook many of
women’s contributions to household welfare and
should therefore be broadened to include at least the
processing of primary products and preferably house-
work and child-rearing as well (Dixon-Mueller and
Anker, 1988). Consequently, although the United
Nations favors economic responsibility for household
maintenance as the key to defining the household
head, “it is not recommended that this definition be
applied because of the difficulty of collecting the
information needed to determine economic responsi-
bility” (United Nations, 1969, in Youssef and Hetler,
1983, p. 225). In short, the data needed to assess the
proportion of the world’s households maintained pri-
marily (let alone solely) by women are simply not
available.” If woman-headed households are indeed
underreported in census data, we must rely on guess-
work to decide whether they are underreported by
one-third, one-half, or whatever; but one would not
guess this from the confidence with which figures are
currently being presented.
A second problem concerns the exact meaning of
this idea that the head of household bears primary eco-
nomic responsibility for its welfare. It appears to leave
no room for two (or more) people bearing equal
responsibility for household welfare, and raises ques-
tions about where the line should be drawn. How
much more than her partner must a woman contribute
in order to count as head of household?
The third problem is one of inconsistency. If eco-
nomic responsibilities are the key issue, justifying the
inclusion of married women who support their house-
hold, it is necessary, to be consistent, to exclude those
households in which the (unpartnered) women is not
the main provider, because that function is fulfilled by
another household member or members. We do not
know what proportion of unpartnered women are the
main providers for their household. Nor do we know
to what extent those who are not the primary provider
will already have been excluded when headship is
defined by respondents. Question marks abound; but
when arguments about economic responsibilities are
used to justify assertions that census data underesti-
mate the proportion of households headed by women,
no attention is paid to the possibility of a countervail-
ing effect. The figure always appears to go up, never
down.
The next section attempts to throw further light on
HOUSEHOLDS so9
these points by means of a brief review of some
research findings from Mexico.
4. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM MEXICO
The main publications of the Mexican census do
not provide information about the sex of the house-
hold head. A recent occasional publication by the cen-
sus office, L.a Mujer en Mhico, however, reports that
in 1990 17.3% of Mexico’s 16.2 million households
were headed by women (INEGI, 1993).‘? Excluding
people living alone, the proportion was 15.7%, almost
identical to the 15.3% reported in 1970 (INEGI, 1993,
pp. 1 l&l 12)” In districts of 50,000 people or more.
17.2% of households (excluding single person house-
holds) were headed by women, as opposed to 12.7%
in those of less than 2,500 people (p. 112). Again
excluding single-person households, the Federal
District of Mexico City had 19.7% of its households
headed by women, more than any of the Mexican
States, and the highest proportion of separated,
divorced and widowed women. In all, women headed
21.9% of the Federal District’s households (pp. 113,
115). This is likely to be the highest figure for any
urban area in Mexico, but the figure for Mexico City
as a whole will almost certainly be lower (Varley,
1995)‘” We may suggest, therefore, that according to
census data one in five households in Latin America’s
largest city is headed by a woman.
Tables 3-5 present information concerning 100
low-income households headed by a woman house-
holder in surveys in the cities of Guadalajara and
Puebla.15 In each city, a young self-help settlement
containing mostly owners, an older self-help settle-
ment containing both owners and tenants, and a cen-
tral area with a high tenant population were studied,
and households selected at random from the
owner/tenant population of each area.16 It was there-
fore entirely a matter of chance that the number of
households identified as headed by a woman house-
holder totalled 100. Table 3 shows the percentage of
households in each area which could be considered as
headed by a woman. The focus on housing and con-
cern about the implications of the “head of household”
concept led to the identification for each household of
one or two “householders”: the person(s) who origi-
nally bought or rented the house. Where there was a
couple, both were recognized as householders. The
figures presented here therefore refer to women
householders without a resident partner. This
approach excludes women who do have a resident
partner but carry the main economic responsibility for
household welfare, but it has two advantages. First, a
consistent definition was used. Second, the oldest gen-
eration in a three-generation household was not auto-
matically overlooked in favor of the next generation,
as tends to occur in many surveys in which younger
510 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

members are identified as the head(s) of household
because they are economically active.
Table 3 shows that one half of these households
consisted of a woman and her “children” (mostly in
their teens or 20s). A further quarter involved exten-
sions to this basic group, mostly resulting from the
addition of grandchildren and sons- or daughters-in-
law, or less frequently the householder’s mother or
father. Perhaps more surprisingly, as many as one-
sixth involved a (generally late middle-aged or
elderly) woman living on her own, although this is
often regarded as very unusual in Mexico.” The
remainder involved other arrangements, such as sib-
lings sharing a house. In all, 30% of these women had
at least one child under the age of 15 living with them,
and 46% of the households contained at least one per-
son under this age (including other relatives as well as
the householder’s own children). Thus, the majority of
these households were unlikely to consist of women
with dependent children, largely because they were
mostly headed by middle-aged or older women: 67%
of the women heading these households in
Guadalajara, and 57% in Puebla, were aged 50 or
over.
Survey respondents were also asked about who
was responsible for earning an income and contribut-
ing to the household budget. Particular care was taken
to ask women who initially said they did not “work’
whether or not they “helped” with household finances,
for example, by taking in washing. The results are
shown in Table 4, without any attempt to quantify the
income or contributions of those involved. They raise
important questions about the implications of head-
ship definitions based on economic criteria, since in
over half the households in question the householder
was not earning any income. The same applies when
single-person households are excluded. If, therefore,
definition of headship rested on the “main breadwin-
ner” role, the majority of these women could not qual-
ify as household heads.
The significance of this finding can be better
appreciated if we consider the relationship between
absence of a male partner and household extension. In
the survey as a whole, 18.2% of households were
found to be extended; but 35.0% of woman-headed
households were extended.ls Given that most exten-
sions involve adult offspring starting their own fami-
lies (Varley, 1993). they are clearly related to the life
course, but Table 5 shows that at all ages, women
without a resident male partner were more likely to
live in extended households than those with a partner.
It seems that woman-headed households are more
likely to be extended.19 This helps to explain why,
although woman-headed households were smaller,
the average number of members earning an income
was not dissimilar (Table 5). Consequently, woman-
headed households had lower dependency ratios than
otherszO As a number of people commented in a fol-
low-up study,*’ family members stay together for rea-
sons of mutual support and solidarity, and cultural val-
ues emphasize the moral obligation for people
(especially sons) to support their mothers. Married
children may remain in the household in order to
ensure their mother’s economic welfare (Chant,
1985b).z2 Consequently, household extension is likely
to reduce the number of households which can be

Table 3. Households headed by women householders in two Mexican cities (number of households)

Woman Woman Woman +

Area and tenure group living alone + offspring offspring + others Other %‘r

Guadalajara
Young settlement owners (53) 0 5 6 1 12
Older settlement owners (56) 3 3 1 1 13
Older settlement tenants (52) 3 7 5 0 16
City center tenants (58) 5 13 5 0 19
Puebla
Young settlement owners (49) 0 3 2 0 5
Older settlement owners (64) 0 6 3 2 14
Older settlement tenants (42) 1 8 1 2 15
City center tenants (52) 4 6 3 1 12
All (54) 16 51 26 J 13
Mean age of head (to nearest year) 62 52 56 54 54

Source: Author’s questionnaire survey (see Gilbert and Varley,l991).

Numbers in the totals row (“All”) are also percentages, as a total of 100 households headed by women householders were sur-
veyed. Figure given after name of each area is the mean age of the women householders heading their household in this area,
to the nearest year.
‘IPercentage of all households surveyed in this area/tenure group in which the woman householder had no resident male part
ner.
 WOMAN-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS 511

Table 4. Household members earning an income in households headed by women householders in two Mexican cifies
(number of households)*

Area and tenure group Head only Head + others Others only None of these

Guadalajara
Young settlement owners 6 6 0
Older settlement owners 3 2
Older settlement tenants 2 I I
City center tenants 4 II 1

Puebla
Young settlement owners 3 0
Older settlement owners 7 1
Older settlement tenants 4 0
City center tenants 5 4 3
All 24 2; 45 9
Excluding women living alone 15 (18%) 22 (26%) 44 (52%) 3 (4%)
Mean age of head (to nearest year) 48 49 58 58

Source: Author’s questionnaire survey.

*Numbers in totals row (“All”) are also percentages, as a total of 100 households headed by women householders were sur-
veyed. The mean age is for all householders considered in this table including women living alone.
Figures refer to the number of households in which the persons indicated were earning an income. The stze of their contribu-
tions to the household budget, and other sources of income such as pensions and remittances from relatives living elsewhere,
are not taken into consideration, although they were clearly crucial for households in the extreme right-hand column.

recognized as headed by an unpartnered woman on
economic grounds. The implication for the wider
arguments discussed in this paper is that it cannot be
assumed that women heading households without a
resident male partner also maintain their households,
since cultural values emphasizing family solidarity
can counteract the necessity for them to enter the labor
market in order to survive.
5. UNDERPLAYING THE DIVERSITY OF
WOMAN-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS
The findings presented above suggest that if eco-
nomic definitions of headship are preferred, a consid-
erable number of midlife and older women who would
conventionally be regarded as household heads will
have to be excluded from this category - at least, in
urban Mexico. In this context, findings from two other
Latin American studies are worth citing. In Peru,
Rosenhouse (1989, p. 20) found that 60% of 883
women reported as heading their households in the
World Bank Living Standards Measurement Survey
were aged 50 or over; their mean age was 53 years.
The head was the main or only income earner in 56%
of the woman-headed households, i.e. 44% would not
be recognized as woman-headed on economic
grounds. The mean age of urban women reported as
heading their households in the 1984 Brazilian annual
household survey was 51 years, and only one-third of
them were single mothers with children (Barros, Fox
and Mendonca, 1994). Using data for three metropol-
itan areas, the authors of the Brazilian study calculated
that if the person earning the most were to be recog-
nized as head, rather than the person named by respon-
dents, “17 percent of those classified in the survey as
female-headed would move to the male-headed classi-
fication, but only 7 percent of those classified as male-
headed would be classified as female-headed” (p. 7).
In such circumstances, it seems that economic defini-
tions of headship may exclude relatively more women
heads than they include by comparison with respon-
dent-based definitions.
Clearly, this is not the end of the story: for exam-
ple, income earned is not the same as contributions to
the household budget, and what holds for certain parts
of urban Latin America may not hold elsewhere. It is
equally clear, however, that not all women without a
resident male partner can be regarded as the economic
mainstay of their households. In few cases is it safe to
say of existing macro-level data that “the main earners
of woman-headed families are by definition women”
(Buvinii: and Gupta, 1993, p. 4).
There is an urgent need for further research on the
extent to which women are becoming responsible for
providing the major contribution to the household
budget, but arguments about woman-maintained
households do not at present provide adequate justifi-
cation for the assertion that one in three of the world’s
households is headed by a woman.
512 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Table 5. Selected characteristics of households with and without a male householder, by age of woman householder, in two
Mexican cities

Percentage No. of No. earning an Dependency

Age of woman extended members* income* ratio*?
householder WHH$ OHH$ WHH OHH WHH OHH WHH OHH

Guadalajara
Up to 29 years - 5 - 4.6 - 1.1 - 3.3
30-39 years 50 6 3.9 6.0 1.4 1.3 2.2 4.1
40-49 years 36 21 4.6 8.2 1.9 2.6 1.2 2.9
50-59 years 28 20 4.7 6.2 1.8 2.2 1.9 2.2
60 years/more 29 17 3.3 3.6 1.5 1.3 1.1 1.5
All 33 11 4.1 5.8 1.7 1.6 1.5 3.3
N 58 306 58 305 58 304 52 295

Puebla
Up to 29 years 67Il 10 4.7Y 4.5 l.O¶ 1.3 2.8% 3.0
30-39 years 259 18 4.8¶ 5.8 1.8¶ 1.5 1.89 3.3
40-49 years 36 28 5.1 6.7 1.9 2.1 2.4 2.8
50-59 years 25 22 3.8 6.0 1.6 2.1 1.7 2.1
60 years/more 50 19 3.2 4.3 1.3 1.6 1.6 1.6
All 38 18 4.1 5.5 1.6 1.6 1.9 2.9
N 42 313 42 313 42 313 38 301

Source: Author’s questionnaire survey.

Table excludes 33 households with no female householder, and other missing cases as appropriate.
*Mean values.
TDependency ratio: no. of dependents for each member earning an income (excluding households where there are no mem-
bers earning an income).
$WHH - Households without a male householder.
§OHH - Households with a male householder.
mss than five observations.

The point of this paper, however, is not the figure
which we should be citing: one-fifth, one-third or
whatever. The critical point it seeks to make is that
current discourse on woman-headed households in the
field of gender and development runs the danger of
marginalizing certain groups of women, particularly
older women.
Almost two decades ago, BuviniC, Youssef and
Von Elm (1978, p. 10) argued that:
The typical contention that female heads of household
are older women who have adult children able to support
them is not borne out by recent empirical findings.
They sought to challenge complacency on the part of
policy makers by emphasizing the existence of
women with economic responsibilities toward other
household members, particularly dependent children.
The Latin American experiences discussed above,
however, showed that many women heading their
households are indeed older women with adult chil-
dren, and its seems that, in the two decades that have
passed since BuviniC, Youssef and Von Elm wrote
their report, the pendulum has swung the other way,
such that it is now older women who are in danger of
being left out of the debate.
There is obviously no conscious intention in the
gender and development literature to marginalize
older women or to underplay the diversity of woman-
headed households. On the con&q, many authors
have taken pains to point out that women heading
households constitute “a heterogenous group that
defies stereotyping” (Barros, Fox and Mendonca,
1994; see also BuviniC, Youssef and Von Elm, 1978;
Youssef and Hetler, 1983; Moser, 1993). Household
heads include single women in employment; never-
married, widowed, divorced or separated mothers
with or without dependent children; and elderly
women living alone or with an unmarried daughter or
son; and this does not exhaust all the possibilities. Yet
statements about the heterogeneity of woman-headed
households are not always followed by an effective
recognition of their diversity in empirical research or
policy formulation. As Kennedy and Peters (1992, p.
1083) have argued, understanding of gender and
development issues “has been obscured by the ten-
dency to treat female-headed households as a homo-
geneous group.” In particular, I would suggest that the
concept of “woman-headed households” is often used
as if it meant “single mothers with dependent chil-
dren.” Demographers De Vos and Arias (1995, p. 2)
 WOMAN-HEADED
have also noted that “when talking of female-headed
households many people are really talking about
women-headed households that contain dependent
children.”
This use of “woman-headed households” as short-
hand for “single mothers with dependent children” is
understandable in two respects. First, “most national
and international agencies [believe] that both concern
and funding should focus on women of childbearing
age,” since they constitute a large share of the female
population in developing regions and “bear the burden
of reproduction in the family” (Sennott-Miller, 1989,
p. 11). Second, although the World Bank (1990, p. 4)
argues that “intervention to assist women . . is justi-
fied on grounds of equity alone,” the essentially femi-
nist thrust of this argument may not be acceptable to
the skeptical or prejudiced. The efficiency argument
is a safer card to play: a policy focus on women is jus-
tified because shifting resources towards them will
improve family welfare. It is then women’s role as
caretakers for others that will make them attractive to
policy makers, and the woman with dependent chil-
dren is the caretaker par excelZence.z3
The emphasis on a particular group of woman-
headed households and the growing preference for
discussing woman-maintained households reinforce
each other, since it is women with dependent children
but no other household members who are most likely
to be solely responsible for household survival (uhless
they receive support from kin elsewhere, for exam-
ple). This emphasis helps to explain why the possible
transmission of disadvantage to the children of single
mothers figures prominently in the literature on
woman-headed households, and it is also evident in
the kind of arguments used to explore and explain the
poverty of such households. For example, Buvinie
and Gupta (1993, p. 4) report that woman-headed
households, “despite their smaller size in comparison
to other types of households, often carry a higher
dependency burden . . they tend to contain a higher
ratio of non-workers than do other households.” As
Barros, Fox and Mendonca (1994, p. 17) have shown,
this is more likely to be the case for mothers with
young children than where older women have grown-
up children entering the labor market (and where, in
the cases described above, woman-headed households
have a lower dependency ratio - Table 5; see also
Rosenhouse, 1989, p. 35).24 Similarly, arguments
about greater time and mobility constraints affecting
women who head their households again center on the
assumption that childcare is a central issue in their
lives. Indeed, Buvinic and Gupta acknowledge the
specificity of the findings they review by concluding
that “the evidence indicates that female-headed
families with children to support tend to be dispropor-
tionately represented among the poor” (p. 6; added
emphasis).
An explicit focus on single mothers has informed
HOUSEHOLDS 513
recent interest in “concealed woman-headed house-
holds,” meaning “woman-maintained families who
often reside as subfamilies in larger households”
(BuviniC and Gupta, 1993, p. 3) - in particular,
young single mothers living with their parents
(BuviniC et al., 1992). Such subfamilies are common
in Latin America, where 1970s World Fertility Survey
data for six countries revealed that more than half the
unmarried women with children under the age of 15
did not head their own household (De Vos and
Richter, 1988). Interestingly, as with woman-main-
tained households, the interest in concealed woman-
headed households has led to calls for estimates of the
proportion of woman-headed households to be revised
upward. In case studies from Argentina and Mexico,
Falh and Curutchet ( 199 1) and Peiia ( 1992) have sug-
gested that the percentage of woman-headed house-
holds may double if such “concealed households” are
included. Again, the method by which such estimates
are derived needs careful consideration. Clearly, the
additional units identified should also be added to the
total number of households. In addition, if mother-
child subfamilies are counted as separate units, it may
be argued that so too should other subfamilies, such as
young couples with children (Varley, 1994).
More importantly, although the introduction of
another subgroup may appear to emphasize the diver-
sity of woman-headed households, there is a danger of
further conflating “woman-headed households” with
“single mothers of dependent children.” The rationale
for calling mother-child subfamilies “concealed
woman-headed households” is the belief that these
single mothers will be responsible for supporting their
children. In some studies, it seems to be taken for
granted that “these women have to assume respon-
sibility for taking care of and raising their children, as
well as guaranteeing economic support” (Falli and
Curutchet, 1991, p. 29); alternatively, evidence from
individual cases is extrapolated to all the others.The
most rigorous study, however, a survey of poor ado-
lescent mothers in Santiago de Chile, found that
approximately two-fifths of them were providing eco-
nomic support to their children between the ages of
three and five (BuviniC et al., 1992, p. 277). Although
this study included partnered as well as unpartnered
adolescent mothers, and women housed indepen-
dently as well as those living with their parents, an
overall figure of three-fifths not providing economic
support for their children suggests that many of the
single-mother subfamilies would fail to qualify as
woman-maintained households.2s
The Mexican study discussed above also recorded
the existence of younger single mothers living in
extended households generally headed by their par-
ent(s).2b The sample surveys identified a total of 18
women aged 30 or under with children living in
extended households, but only five living indepen-
dently.” Overall, single mothers living independently
514 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

had a mean age of 52 years (Table 3), whereas Table 6
shows that the mean for those living with their parents
or in-laws was 28. One quarter of the women living
with their own parents were not earning an income,
making it difficult to consider them concealed heads
of household on economic grounds. Table 6 also
records two other groups of women who are mothers
- the householders’ mothers and sisters - as a
reminder that women with young or dependent chil-
dren are not the only “mother-child” units in extended
households. To assume, therefore, that single mothers
living in an extended household are directly responsi-
ble for supporting their children, and to overlook the
existence of other subfamilies which could potentially
be classed as concealed woman-headed households,
underplays the diversity of woman-headed house-
holds - as will policy recommendations based on
such assumptions.
The implications of these policy recommendations
may also be questioned. Targeting “concealed house-
holds” for economic assistance may enable at least
some to become independent:
Policymakers should be aware . that successful inter-
ventions on behalf of these mothers may lead to
increased demand for housing and could produce an
apparent sharp rise in female-headed households as sub-
families are enabled to afford independent housing
(BuviniC er al., 1992, p. 290).
The reason for this particular group of women being
targeted is that they are mothers. Pragmatically, this
may be justified, but the implications bear considera-
tion. For example: the childless sisters of these
prospective policy beneficiaries do not, it seems,
require support enabling them to become indepen-
dent. They are presumably to remain where they are,
in their parents’ home, until marriage or motherhood
earns them too the right to “independence” - a curi-
ous sort of independence?
Another issue raised by policies targeting woman-
headed households returns us to the subject of older
women. There are a considerable number of elderly
women living in the household of a married son or
daughter, in Latin America as elsewhere (De Vos,
1990). But the literature has not largely concerned
itself with these older women. Indeed, they may be
explicitly excluded from consideration as potential
policy beneficiaries. Rosenhouse (1989, p. 5) criti-
cizes definitions of household headship which “over-
state the number of households headed by women by
classifying nonworking older women supported by
sons, daughters, or other relatives as heads.”
Reviewing a study by Jain (1992), BuviniC and Gupta
describe the difficulties of targeting woman-headed
households in India:
Using data from the 1981 census , . [Tamil Nadu] state
officials were not able to distinguish female-maintained
households from those headed by widows. Further, the
widows who were identified were often not economically
active and therefore did not tit the definition of the tar-
geted population (BuviniCand Gupta, 1993, p. 21).
The implication of insisting that a widow be econom-
ically active in order to qualify for assistance is that
the dependence of older women on their relatives is
not a problem. But is their welfare guaranteed? To
assume that it is implies a model of the benevolent
family working for the good of all its members that

Table 6. “Concealed woman-headed households” and householder’s mothers*

Householder’s daughter Householder’s sister

Area and tenure group + offspring7 + offspring Householder’s mother

Guadalajara
Young settlement owners 4 0 3
Older settlement owners 2 0 0
Older settlement tenants 4 0 2
City center tenants 2 1 3

Puebla
Young settlement owners 2 1 7
Older settlement owners 3 1 6
Older settlement tenants 6 0 1
City center tenants 2 0 4
All 25 3 26
Mean age (to nearest year) 28 37 68

Source: Author’s questionnaire survey.

*Figures refer to the persons indicated, not the households in which they lived. One household contained two daughters in
their 20s with young children; another, the women’s elderly mother plus the man’s sister and her children.
tin two cases, a woman abandoned by her husband still lived with his parent(s); they are counted with the householder’s
daughters because they are of the same generation.
 WOMAN-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS
has been rejected by feminist researchers with refer-
ence to domestic violence or child abuse. The assump-
tion is also at odds with the experiences recorded in an
international literature on conflict within multigenera-
tional households (Varley, 1993) and on abuse of the
elderly (particularly women) within the home
(Whittaker, 1995). Thus, the well-being of older
women is by no means guaranteed by their living with
a married daughter or son.
In short, current thinking on woman-headed
households is in danger of marginalizing older women
and women who either live alone or might like to do
so. One reason why this matters is that women’s
greater longevity means older women are more likely
to be household heads without a male partner
(Sennott-Miller, 1989). In this context, it is worth
recalling that demographic ageing is not confined to
the most industrialized countries. In Latin America,
the female population aged 60 years and over grew at
3.19% p.a. in the early 198Os, compared with a growth
rate of 2.3% p.a. for the female population as a whole
(ECLAC, 1991). In parts of the region, the elderly
population is likely to increase by factors of four to six
during 198G2025 (Sennot-Miller, 1989).
The response to these observations may well be
that needs are infinite and priorities must be set. While
that may be so, I return to the question: why is it single
mothers with young children who are singled out as
the priority for research and policy initiatives, when
(actual or potential) woman-headed households are
such a diverse category? The implication of some of
the policy thinking on woman-headed households is
that women are either someone’s “child” (the depen-
dant of their male partners or their own parents) or
someone’s mother. Is this the basis of a progressive
strategy?
6. CONCLUSIONS
It has been argued that some approaches to
woman-headed households in the gender and develop-
ment literature run the risk of imposing a one-dimen-
sional image of women as single mothers of depen-
dent children onto these households. This fails to
acknowledge the diversity of woman-headed house-
holds and reproduces an essentialist view of women,
“a definition of ‘woman”’ which is crucially depen-
dent on the concept of ‘mother’ (Moore, 1988, p. 25).
It is ironic that a policy-oriented approach to woman-
headed households which is feminist in inspiration
should run the danger of giving renewed life to an
essentialism long criticized by feminists.
The recommendations that follow from this analy-
sis are, first, that researchers and policy analysts
should reconsider the assumption that economic defi-
nitions of headship are necessarily better than conven-
tional ones. But there is little or no point in trying to
51s
develop an all-encompassing definition of headship.
Just as the wide range of functions associated with
“the domestic” do not all overlap neatly in a unitary
household, it is unrealistic to expect all the possible
attributes of headship to coincide in a single person or
to regard that person as the impartial representative of
others’ interests. It is therefore necessary to define the
head of household in a way which suits the purposes
of a given study or policy. As Rosenhouse (1989. p.
45) writes:
If the concept of headship is to be policy relevant, indica-
tors of headship should be constructed to reflect that
aspect of the concept being examined.
If housing is the focus of concern, for example, the
household and its head(s) should be defined in relation
to tenure: who “holds” the house (Varley, 1994)? If,
on the other hand, we are concerned about the
“detachment of women and children from men’s
income” (Moser, 1993, p. 18), then headship should
be defined in terms of economic contribution to the
household. Rosenhouse (1989, p. 25) proposes a deli-
nition of the “working head . on the basis of who
work[s] the greatest proportion of hours.“?* It should
be noted that such an approach permits and indeed
requires the introduction of a notion of “joint head-
ship.”
Two objections may be raised to this proposal. The
first is that it may make target groups even more diffi-
cult to identify because of a lack of data collected
using a particular definition of headship. However:
Viewing the household merely as a convenient conduit
for data collection rather than as a conceptual construct
runs the danger of leaving important questions unasked
and hence unanswered (Kabeer and Joekes. 199 I. p. 2).
If these questions are asked, and it is found that they
cannot be answered using existing data, the worst
strategy is to pretend otherwise and try to force square
data into a round concept. We cannot assume that con-
ventionally defined (reported) woman-headed house-
holds are woman-maintained households, or that
adding woman-maintained households to the number
of woman-headed households identified in census
data can justify much-cited figures for the proportion
of the world’s households headed by a woman.
A second objection may be raised on the grounds
of (injconsistency: recommending economic defini-
tions of headship surely contradicts what has been
said about the dangers of marginalizing certain groups
of women? Where I differ, however, from those who
see concepts such as the “working head” as the solu-
tion to the problem is in adding, as a necessary corol-
lary, a plea for more explicit consideration to be given
to (some) women whose economic position within the
household is that of dependant rather than caretaker.
In this context, (other attributes of) household head-
ship may still be highly relevant. It would be possible
516 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
to explore, for example, whether a woman’s being rec-
ognized as household head because she is the oldest
member or because she owns the house makes any dif-
ference to the way she is treated by other members and
consequently to her well-being (Varley, 1994).
What is required, therefore, is a flexible approach
to defining headship and an explicit recognition of the
needs of older women heads (or non-heads) who are
not responsible for supporting the household. We
need this in order to avoid the household’s becoming
“an end rather than a means” as a result of “over-con-
cretized thinking in development practice” (Guyer
and Peters, 1987, p. 210). A fixation on particular
types of household encourages a static approach
overly concerned with structure and boundaries at the
expense of process and change (Guy and Peters, 1987;
Netting, Wilk and Amould, 1984) - for example,
with statistical incidence of woman-headed house-
holds at a given time rather than the processes by
which women leave and re-enter relationships chang-
ing the form, internal functioning and external rela-
tions of their household. Ultimately, such a fixation
on household type also undermines a truly gendered
analysis of household structure and functioning. Two
examples are given below.
First, it has been shown that, in urban Mexico at
least, woman-headed households are more likely to be
extended in form than others. What is it about such
households that makes their boundaries so much less
rigid?
Second, as feminist scholars have emphasized, the
household “is not independent in its resources and
decision-making capacity from wider society”
(Roberts, 1991, p. 64). The importance of women’s
roles in maintaining the social networks which help
poor households to survive is well established, but a
recent Mexican study has suggested that woman-
headed households are less able to mobilize such net-
works (Willis, 1993). What, then, are the implications
of policies which may lead to the segregation of “con-
cealed woman-headed households” from the extended
households in which they currently reside? Some of
the younger mothers in question may be entirely
dependent on their parents and siblings for emotional
and practical, as well as financial, support, and some
may not have any desire for things to be otherwise. As
Rapp (1991, p. 203) has commented:
It is a common experience for a woman to go from being
someone’s child to having someone’s child in under a
year. This is not exactly a situation that leads to auton-
omy.
Where single mothers in extended households are
employed, their ability to earn money could well
depend on childcare support from other members;
moreover, their ability to provide such support may be
important to others.29 The existence of social networks
means that such exchange of resources may not be
prevented by a single mother’s moving to other
(nearby) accommodation; but nor is it likely to be
facilitated by such a move. We may also question
whether the ability to mobilize social networks out-
side the extended household is increased or decreased
by dividing it in two.
In short, policies enabling single-mother subfami-
lies to become independent households may under-
mine support networks operating both within and
beyond the extended household. These support net-
works are themselves gendered. To underline the
importance of this point: the Mexican study described
above found that 17.5% of extended households con-
tained a single daughter/in-law and her children, but
that 34.3% of extended households headed by a
woman contained such a subfamily.30 This suggests
that the “queen bee” household of the Caribbean and
the Atlantic lowlands of some other Latin American
countries may also be found in Mexico’s major cities,
although we cannot as yet tell whether or not these
households are formed because “young women
become pregnant without marrying or leaving homes
headed by their mothers” (De Vos and Richter, 1988,
p. 215).
Thus, although feminist scholars have rightly crit-
icized the “romanticized” idea of “automatic and
inevitable mechanical solidarity” between household
members (Wolf, 1990, p. 62), solidarity networks
operating both within and between households are
themselves gendered. To restrict analysis to identify-
ing particular types of household as targets for anti-
poverty strategies may therefore undermine a truly
gendered analysis of development.
Finally, there is one further danger to the current
emphasis on woman-headed households. This paper
has argued that a focus on single mothers of dependent
children risks making some other women heading
their households - in particular, older women and
women living on their own - “invisible.” There is
also a danger of rendering “invisible” those women
who live in households conventionally regarded as
headed by a man (Varley, 1993). Comparisons based
on sex of the household head, for example, may begin
by referring to households, but they can soon turn into
a comparison of “women” and “men,” as if there were
no women present in households headed by men -or
at least, none capable of taking significant decisions.
This is more than a problem of linguistic short-cuts. It
illustrates the power of the dominant ideology of the
household to influence the thinking of researchers
who reject that ideology. Constant vigilance is
required if feminist scholars’ efforts to deconstruct the
household are not to reproduce some of the ways of
thinking which we seek to challenge.
 WOMAN-HEADED
NOTES
1. Moreover, the replacement of “head of household” by
“person of reference/householder” does not necessarily over-
come the bias toward men.
2. The concept has been subject to much debate in recent
years, but most reviews conclude that “it is important. not
to go too far and ditch the concept of the household as a unit
altogether” (Evans, 1991, p. 59). since it is a site of overlap-
ping sets of relations and functions, although the extent of
that overlap is particularly questionable in an African context
(Guyer and Peters, 1987).
7
_ Translation by author of this article.
4. The highest earner is not necessarily, of course, the
highest contributor to the household budget.
5. Space precludes separate discussion of urban and rural
households, but 1980s census data for Latin America show
21-23% of urban households in Guatemala, Peru and
Uruguay being headed by a woman, and 34% in Cuba (UN,
1989). Most Latin American studies report urban figures of
under 25% (Rosenhouse, 1989; Varley, 1993).
6. Elsewhere in her text, Chaney (1984) cites a number of
United Nations publications, but none appear to be the source
of the figure in question. The only likely possibility is United
Nations (1980) which cites BuviniC, Youssef and Von Elm
(1978) (see text and note 7). Rogers (1980, p. 76) cites
Tinker (I 976) and adds “See also United Nations documents
for the Mexico Conference of the International Women’s
Year, 1975.” The Mexico meetings led to the publication, in
which Tinker’s paper appears plus a bibliography (Buvinic,
1976). No U.N. document cited in these publications, how-
ever, fits Rogers’ description or otherwise appears a likely
candidate. The most we can say is that the origin appears to
have been United Nations documents discussed in the
Mexico City conferences, but that the exact source remains
unknown (and probably unavailable).
7. Except perhaps by rough and ready averaging of the
maximum (48%) and minimum (10%) figures calculated by
Buvinic, Youssef and Von Elm (and cited in United Nations,
1980, p. 8)? They indicate, in the same sentence, however,
that the overall average is 18% (p. 1).
8. No distinction is here made between those who are for-
mally married and those living in consensual unions, and
“single” is used to mean that a person lacks a resident partner,
not that s/he is unmarried.
9. For reviews of the literature on this subject, see
Buvinic and Gupta (1993) and Chalita Ortiz (1992).
10. For example, that “people, when asked to describe
their household composition, have a tendency to enumerate
‘normal’ conjugal family members” (Fonseca, 1991, p. 135).
I 1. The United Nations (1973, cited in Youssef and Hetler,
1983) found only six out of 36 census agencies defining the
head as “chief earner,” and few studies have employed rigor-
ous economic headship criteria.
HOUSEHOLDS 517
12. The head of household was the person so recognized
by census respondents.
13. Women formed 43.4% of single-person households in
1970 and 48.9% in 1990 (INEGI, 1993, p. 114). The similar-
ity of the 1970 and 1990 figures for woman-headed house-
holds is worth noting, in view of the widespread consensus
that such households are becoming increasingly common.
(Doubts about the validity of the 1980 census probably
explain omission of the 1980 data from official publica-
tions).
14. The rest of the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City, which
falls within the State of Mexico, includes large areas of “self-
help” housing, in which woman-headed households are
likely to be underrepresented. Moreover, the figure for the
State of Mexico as a whole will be heavily influenced by the
Mexico City area, and women are recorded as heading 15.0%
of households in the State (INEGI, 1993, p. 113,115).
15. The surveys, of 753 households in all, were carried out
in the mid-1980s for an Overseas Development
Administration-funded research project (Gilbert and Varley,
1991). Guadalajarais the second largest Mexican city (popu-
lation nearly three million) and Puebla, the fourth largest
(population over one million).
16. “Self-help” housing is that in which construction is
organized and generally undertaken largely by the residents
themselves, usually on land which has been acquired ille-
gally in order to reduce costs. In Guadalajara, the young set-
tlement was 5-6 years old, the older settlement, approxi-
mately 30 years old; in Puebla they were 2-3 years and
almost 40 years old, respectively. In both cities, the central
area chosen had originated as one of the “Indian” barrios
around the area drawn up for Spanish settlement.
17. These households came to 2.1% of the 753 surveyed.
Nationally, women living alone constitute 2.4% of Mexican
households and three-fifths are aged 60 or more (INEGI.
1993, p. 109).
18. 1970s World Fertility Survey on married women indi-
cate that 22.3% of Mexican urban households in which the
husband had less than a complete primary education were
extended (De Vos, 1993).
19. The x2 statistic for the relationship between extension
and sex of head (ignoring age) was significant at p < 0.001
for Guadalajara and p < 0.005 for Puebla. The finding was
confirmed in a 1991-92 follow-up survey of 430 households
in the four self-help settlements plus two approximately 20-
year old self-help settlements in Mexico City. Overall, 26%
were extended, but 54% of those without a male householder
were extended. These results were significant at p < O.CD5for
Mexico City and p < 0.05 for Guadalajara; data for Puebla
did not meet the conditions for the chi-square test. Chant
(1985b, p. 648) reports similar findings from a survey of 244
households in younger self-help settlements in Queretaro:
“one-third of the female-headed units contained additional
relatives [compared with] only one-fifth of the households
headed by males.”
518 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
20. Findings by Chant (1991, p. 192) are less consistent
but also suggest, overall, that households headed by women
are likely to have lower dependency ratios than others.
21. See note 19.
22. In a study of household extension and older people in
Latin America, De Vos (1990, p. 93) concludes that “[among
the unmarried] women, who traditionally have been more
economically dependent . were more likely than men to
live in extended family households.”
23. She is not, however, the only sort of woman to head a
household whose other members are dependent children.
Bush, Cliffe and Jansen (1986) note the importance of older
women in southern Africa taking responsibility for grand-
children whose parents are working in urban areas.
24. Jain (1992, in BuviniC and Gupta, 1993. p. 21) notes
that poor households headed by widows tended to have lower
dependency ratios than those headed by men.
25. The same source shows approximately three-quarters
of the maternal grandparents, and three-fifths of the biologi-
cal fathers, providing support for the children.
26. The youngest unmarried mothers are the least likely to
head their own household (De Vos and Richter, 1988;
BuviniC er al., 1992). This does not mean they follow a tra-
jectory from living in an extended household to becoming
REFERENCES
Ashworth, G., “Raising gender consciousness in develop-
ment,” Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the
Development Studies Association (Nottingham:
University of Nottingham, September, 1992).
Barros, R., L. Fox, and R. Mendonca, Female-headed
Households, Poverty, and the Welfare of Children in
Urban Brazil (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1994).
Bruce, J. and D. Dwyer, “Introduction,” in D. Dwyer and J.
Bruce (Eds.), A Home Divided: Women and Income in
the Third World (Stanford: Standford University Press,
1988). pp. l-19.
Bush, R., L. Cliffe, and V. Jansen, “The crisis in the repro-
duction of migrant labour in southern Africa,” in P.
Lawrence (Ed.), World Recession and the Food Crisis in
Africa (London: James Currey, 1986), pp. 283-299.
BuviniC, M., Women and World Development: An Annotated
Bibliography (Washington, DC: Overseas Development
Council, 1976).
Buvinii, M. and G. R. Gupta, “Responding to insecurity in
the 1990s: Targeting woman-headed and woman-main-
tained families in developing countries,” Paper presented
at the International Workshop on Insecurity in the 1990s:
Gender and Social Policy in an International Perspective
(London: London School of Economics and European
Association of Development Institutes, April, 1993).
BuviniC, M. and N. H. Youssef with B. Von Elm, Women-
headed Households: The Ignored Factor in Development
Planning (Washington, DC: International Center for
Research on Women, 1978).
household heads, because single motherhood is not necessar-
ily a permanent condition. According to 1976 data, by the
age of 50,28% of Mexican women had seen the end of their
first marriage, but almost half of them had remarried
(Quilodran, 1991).
27. A further option for some is to live as separate house-
holds sharing their parents’ plot but cooking separately and
maintaining separate budgets. Membership of such house-
holds was not studied in 1985-86, but in the 1991-92 survey
(note 19), only one person out of 124 sharing with their
owner parents was a single mother. Single women, it seems,
are expected or prefer to live within the parental household
rather than share (Varley, 1993).
28. Rosenhouse (1989) defines “hours worked” to include
all market occupations and production of goods at home, but
not housework.
29. The links between household structure and women’s
employment in low-income communities in urban Mexico
are discussed by Chant (1985a).
30. The x2 statistic for the relationship between sex of head
(of these extended households) and presence/absence of a
single daughter/in-law with children was significant at p <
0.005. In the 1991-92 survey (note 19), 8.9% of the extended
households contained a single daughter with children, but
13.8% of woman-headed extended households contained
such a subfamily.
BuviniL, M., J. P., Valenzuela, T. Molina and E. Gonzalez,
“The fortunes of adolescent mothers and their children:
The transmission of poverty in Santiago, Chile,”
Population and Development Review, Vol. 18, No. 2
(1992), pp. 269-297.
Chalita Ortiz, P., “Sobrevivencia en la ciudad: una conceptu-
alizaci6n de las unidades domtsticas encabezadas por
mujeres en America Latina,“ in A. Massolo (Ed.),
Mujeres y Ciudades: Participacidn Social, Vivienda y
Vida Cotidiana (Mexico City: El Colegio de MBxico,
1992), pp. 27 l-297.
Chamie, M., Women of the World: Near East and North
Africa (Washington, DC: United States Bureau of the
Census, 1985).
Chaney, E. M., Women of the World: Latin America and the
Caribbean (Washington, DC: United States Bureau of
the Census, 1984).
Chant, S. H., Women and Survival in Mexican
Cities (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1991).
Chant, S. H., “Family formation and female roles in
Quer&aro, Mexico,” Bullefin of Latin American
Research, Vol. 4, No. I (1985a), pp. 17-32.
Chant, S. H., “Single-parent families: choice or constraint?
The formation of female-headed households in Mexican
shanty towns,” Development and Change, Vol. 16, No. 1
(1985b), pp. 635-656.
Collier, J., M. 2. Rosaldo and S. Yanagisako, “Is there a
Family? New anthropological views,” in B. Thome and
 WOMAN-HEADED
M. YaIom (I%.), Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist
Questions (New York: Longman, 1982), pp. 25-39.
De Vos, S., “Am&is preliminar acerca de las madres
solteras, jefas de hogar, en Brasil durante 1970 y 1980,”
Notas de Poblacio’n, Vol. 22, No. 59 (1994), pp.
155-181.
De Vos, S., “Is there a socioeconomic dimension to house-
hold extension in Latin America?” Journal of
Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1993). pp.
21-34.
De Vos, S., “Extended family living among older people
in six Latin American countries,” Journal of
Gerontology: Social Sciences, Vol. 45, No. 3 (1990), pp.
87-94.
De Vos, S. and E. Arias, “Material well-being of mothers
who head and do not head households: Colombia 1985,”
Mimeo (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1995).
De Vos, S. and K. Richter, “Household headship among
unmarried mothers in six Latin American countries,”
International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Vol.
29, No. 34 (1988) pp. 214-229.
Dixon-Mueller, R., and R. Anker, Assessing Women’s
Economic Contributions to Development (Geneva:
International Labour Office, 1988).
ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean), Major Changes and Crisis; The Impact on
Women in Latin America andfhr Caribbean (Santiago de
Chile: United Nations LC/G. 1592-P. 1991).
Evans, A., “Gender issues in rural household economics,”
IDS Bulletin, Vol. 22, No. 1 (1991), pp. 51-59.
Falu, A. and M. Curutchet, “Rehousing the urban poor:
Looking at women first,” Environment and
Urbanization, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1991), pp. 23-38.
Fonseca, C. ‘Spouses, siblings and sex-linked bonding:
A look at kinship organization in a Brazilian slum,” in
E. Jelin (Ed.), Family, Household and Gender Relations
in Latin America (London: Kegan Paul International,
1991) pp. 133-160.
Gilbert, A. G., and A. Varley, Landlordand Tenant: Housing
the Poor in Urban Mexico (London: Routledge, 1991).
Guyer, J. I., and P. E. Peters, “Introduction - conceptualis-
ing the household: Issues of theory and practice in
Africa,” Development and Change, Vol. 18, No. 2
(1987) pp. 197-214.
Harris, O., “Households as natural units,” in K. Young, C.
Wolkowitz and R. McCullagh (Eds.), Of Marriage and
the Market: Women’s Subordination Internationally and
its Lessons, Second edition (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 19X4), pp. 136155.
INEGI (Instituto National de Estadistica, Geografia e Tinker. I., “A context for the field and for the book.” in I.
Informiitica), Lu Mujer en Mexico (Aguascalientes:
INEGI, 1993).
Kabeer, N., and S. Joekes, “Editorial,” IDS Bulletin, Vol. 22,
No. 1 (1991) pp. I-4.
Kennedy, E. and P. Peters, “Household food security and
child nutrition: The interaction of income and gender of
household head,” World Development, Vol. 20, No. 8
(1992),pp. 1077-1085.
Massiah, J., Women as Heads of Households in the
Caribbean: Family Structure and Feminine Status
(Paris: UNESCO, 1983).
Moore, H. L., Feminism and Anthropology (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1988).
Moser, C. 0. N., Gender Planning and Development:
HOUSEHOLDS 519
Theory, Practice and Training (London: Routledge.
1993).
Moser, C. 0. N., “Gender planning in the Third World:
Meeting practical and strategic needs,” World
Development, Vol. 17, No. 11 (1989). pp. 1799-1825.
Muller, M. S. and D. Plantenga, Women and Habitat: Urban
Management, Empowerment and Women’s Strategies
(Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 1990).
Netting, R. McC.. R. R. Wilk and E. J. Amould,
“Introduction,” in R. McC. Netting, R. R. Wilk and E. J.
Amould (Eds.), Households: Comparative and
Historical Studies of the Domestic Group (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1984) pp. xiii-xxxviii.
Newman, J. S., Women of the World: Sub-Saharun Africa
(Washington, DC: United States Bureau of the Census.
1984).
O’Connell, H., Women and the Family (London: Zed, 1994).
PeAa. F. , “iA quitnes considerar mujeres jefas de familia en
la investigacmn antropol6gica?,” Nueva Anfropoiogia.
Vol. 12, No. 41 t 1992). pp. 159-172.
Quilodran, J., Ni\,eles de Fecundidad y Patrones de
Nupcialidad en M&co (Mexico City: El Colegio de
Mexico, 1991).
Rapp, R.. “Family and class in contemporary America: Notes
towards an understanding of ideology.” in E. Jelin (Ed.).
Family. Household and Gender Relations in Latin
America (London: Kegan Paul International. 199 I ). pp.
1977229.
Roberts. P., “Anthropological perspectives on the house-
hold,” IDSBulletin, Vol. 22, No. 1 (1991) pp. 60-65.
Rogers. B.. The Domestication of Women: Discrimination in
Developing Societies (London: Tavistock, 1980).
Rosenhouse. S.. Identifying the Poor: Is “Headship” a
Useful Concept:’ (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1989).
Sayne, P. L., “Food for thought: Making women visible,”
Environment and Urbanization. Vol. 3. No. 2 (1991). pp.
4656.
SennortrMiller, L., “The health and socioeconomic situation
of midlife and older women in Latin America and
the Caribbean,” in Pan American Health Organization
and American Association of Retired Persons (Eds.).
Midlife and Older Women in Lotin American and the
Caribbean (Washington, DC: PAHO/AARP. 1989). pp.
1-125.
Stichter, S., “Women, employment and the family: Current
debates.” in S. Stichter, and J. Parpart (Eds.), Women,
Employment and the Family in the International Division
of Labour (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990). pp. I l-
71.
Tinker (Ed.), Persistent Inequalities: Women and World
Development (New York: Oxford University Press,
1990). pp. 3-l i.
Tinker. I., “The adverse impact of development on women.”
in I. Tinker, and M. B. Bramsen (Ed%). Women and
World Development (Washington, DC: Overseas
Development Council, 1976). pp. 22-34.
Townsend. J. G. and J. H. Momsen, “Towards a geography
of gender in developing market economies,” in J. H.
Momsen and J. G. Townsend (Eds.). Geography of
Gender in the Third World (New York: Hutchinson.
1987) pp. 27-81.
United Nations, The World’s Women 197&19YO: Trends
rmdS/atistics (New York: United Nations. 199la).
 520 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
United Nations, Women: Challenges to the Year 2000 (New
York: United Nations, 1991b).
United Nations, Demographic Yearbook 1987. Special topic:
Household Composition (New York United Nations,
1989).
United Nations, Sex-based Stereotypes, Sex Biases and
National Data Systems (New York: United Nations
Secretariat, ST/ES4/STATI99, 1980).
Varley, A., “Neither victims nor heroines: Women, land and
housing in urban Mexico,” Third World Planning
Review, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1995). pp. 169-182.
Varley, A., “Housing the household, holding the house,” in
G. A. Jones and P. M. Ward @Is.), Methodology for
Land and Housing Market Analysis (London: UCL
Press, 1994) pp. 12&134.
Varley, A., “Gender and housing: The provision of
accommodation for young adults in three Mexican
cities,” Habitat International, Vol. 17, No. 4 (1993), pp.
13-30.
Whittaker, T., “Violence, gender and elder abuse-towards
View publication stats
a feminist analysis and practice,” Journal of Gender
Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1995), pp. 35-45.
Willis, K., “Women’s work and social network use in
Oaxaca City,” Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol.
12, No. 1 (1993), pp. 65-82.
Wolf, D. L., “Daughters, decisions and domination: An
empirical and conceptual critique of household strate-
gies,” Development and Change, Vol. 2 1, No. 1 (1990),
pp. 43-74.
World Bank, Women in Development: A Progress Report on
the World Bank Initiative (Washington, DC: World
Bank, 1990).
Young, K., Planning Development with Women: Making a
World of Difference (London: Macmillan, 1993).
Youssef, N. H. and Hetler, C. B., “Establishing the economic
condition of woman-headed households in the Third
World: a new approach,” in M. Buvinic, M. A. Lycette
and W. P. McGreevey (Eds.), Women and Poveq in the
Third World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1983) pp. 216-243.