Women-Headed Households in Global Perspective

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with identifying frequencies and trends in the formation of female-headed households in different parts of the world and in highlighting reasons for what appears to be widespread growth at global and regional levels. Integral to this discussion are the problems which arise from data collection, enumeration and synthesis at national and international scales. As indicated in Chapter 1, while there are major (and possibly insurmountable) problems involved in developing universally-applicable categories of households and/or household heads (and many would advocate abandoning this search altogether), the lack of standardised definitions across space and through time inevitably places serious obstacles to the comparative analysis of female headship. My reflections on the macro-level dynamics of female headship are accordingly tentative. Similar reservations apply when I move on in the latter part of the chapter to take a broad look at the diversity in forms and characteristics of women-headed households at inter- and intra-regional levels.