Are Households with Female Heads Really Poorer?

Alya Sakinah Zahirah () and Muhammad Ryan Sanjaya
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Alya Sakinah Zahirah: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics & Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada

No 202312015, Gadjah Mada Economics Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and 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.

Keywords: gender; feminization of poverty theory; wealth index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B54 I31 I32 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2023-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-hme, nep-lab and nep-sea
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