Going beyond female-headed households: Household composition and gender differences in poverty

ABSTRACT

This study sharpens comparisons of gender differences in poverty in South Africa by distinguishing households according to the gender composition of resident adults rather than by household headship. The categories of female-dominated and male-dominated households (where all adults are either women or men respectively) are subsets of female- and male-headed households but their classification avoids many of the problems associated with the concept of household headship. Using nationally representative micro-data, we show that both female-dominated and male-dominated households have become more prevalent over time. Comparing these household types reveals that when men live without women, they mostly live alone; while women who live without men are far more likely to live with children. These differences in household composition help to explain why the gender poverty differential is more marked when comparing female- and male-dominated households as opposed to the broader and more heterogeneous categories of female- and male-headed households.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• feminism
• households
• poverty
• feminisation of poverty

JEL CODES:

• J12
• J16

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors).

Notes

1 The sampling method and sample size changed in the GHS 2020 and 2021, where the mode of data collection shifted from face-to-face computer-assisted personal interviews to telephonic interviews because of COVID-19. The samples therefore excluded households that could not be reached telephonically, and consisted of slightly less than 10,000 households with individual data for about 35,000 household members.

2 As the survey instruments do not distinguish between the ‘head’ or the ‘acting head’, we do not distinguish between ‘de jure’ heads and ‘de facto’ heads of household.

3 For example, the 1995 October Household Survey under-sampled people living in migrant hostels (which would count as single-person households), the majority of whom are men; while before 1999, the surveys under-sampled households in multiple dwelling sites (Wittenberg and Collinson 2007; Kerr and Wittenberg 2013).

4 As female-dominated households are significantly larger than male-dominated households, and include more children, the gender gap in income is less pronounced when equivalence scales are applied to take into account economies of scale in consumption, and the lower consumption requirements of young children in particular (Posel et al. 2016). However, the application of equivalence scales does not significantly change the ordering of men and women in the bottom four income deciles (Posel et al. 2016; see also Streak et al. 2009).