traditional headship measures, which have proved to be of limited use, to new ways of looking at household composition that might be more informative<sup>28</sup> .

Relying on self‐reported headship for understanding gender differences in poverty hides substantial differences related to the type of households in which individuals live.<sup>29</sup> In the first place, looking at just headship does not account for the reasons why the household is headed by a particular individual (e.g. absence of a partner due to migration, family conflict leading individuals to leave their families, or others). Second, by being in most cases self‐reported, household headship reflects social norms and views about who is understood as the head of the household (e.g. the breadwinner, the main decision‐maker, the oldest man, etc.). These norms may vary across countries, within countries, or across income groups, and might privilege one sex over the other<sup>30</sup> . If we look at self‐reported household headship, we can see that female‐headed households are only a modest share of all households (23 percent), and an even smaller share of poor households (16 percent). Their poverty rate is lower than that of male‐headed households (Table 4), but there is little else we are able to learn.

_Table 4. Household poverty rate by self‐reported headship, and distribution of poor households by headship_

||Poverty rate|Share of poor|Share of total|
|---|---|---|---|
|||households|households|
|Female headed households|5.8|16.4|23.5|
|Male‐headed households|9.0|83.6|76.5|
|All households|8.2|100|100|

Note: Total sample 89 countries Source: WB Staff’s calculations based on GMD.

Understanding the different ways men and women experience poverty requires household typologies that are neutral in relation to a normative or cultural view of household headship. Alternative operational definitions of household headship typically include one or both of two distinct dimensions: the demographic composition of the household, and the relative income/economic contribution to household resources (Rogan, 2013; Budlender, 2003; Fuwa, 2000; Buvinic & Gupta, 1997; Handa, 1994, 1996; Posel, 2001; Rogers, 1995; Rosenhouse, 1989; Varley, 1996).

Fuwa (2000), for example, suggests that households can be broken into three distinct groups based on the demographic composition of the household: those households with both male and female adult residents; those with only adult female residents; and those with only adult male residents (all in addition to children and elderly residing in those households). Similarly, with regard to economic contribution, households can be classified based on the sex of the person(s) in the household who contributes the highest share of the total household income. The household’s income can therefore come from a male main or sole income provider, from a female main income provider or from joint contributors (as proposed by Rogan, 2013; and Fuwa, 2000). Other studies (Grown and Valodia, 2010; Rogan, 2013) have constructed

> 28 See Chant 2006, and Lampietti and Stalker, 2000 for a discussion on the issue.

> 29 A number of studies have contested the use of headship as a relevant analytical category for a number or reasons, including the lack of comparable definitions of the terms ‘household’ and ‘head of household’; the ambiguity in the term ‘head of household’ when the assignment of headship is left to the judgement of household members; and the fact that the term ‘head of the household’ that do not reflect internal conflicts in the allocation of resources. See Buvinic and Gupta, 1997; Quisumbing et al., 2001; Budlender, 2008.

> 30 Survey enumerators as well as survey respondents might be affected by these norms.

21