Conceptual Context and Core Debates

Abstract

With reference to literature on women-headed households in both the advanced and developing economies, this chapter sets the scene for some of the more specific issues pursued in the course of the book, first by considering the place of women-headed households within wider family and feminist theories, and second by sketching out the parameters of research and debate on four key topics which have dominated the literature on female household headship and/or lone motherhood: policy, poverty, the intergenerational effects of lone parenthood, and ideological and social marginality.