disproportionately represented among the poor in only 38 cases. Quisumbing et al. (2001) find that the relationship between female headship and poverty is strong in only two out of ten countries they examine.

The ambiguous findings on the strength of the relationship between the gender of the household head and the household’s poverty status can be attributed to at least two factors: (1) differences in how studies classify a household as a female-headed household and (2) substantial compositional heterogeneity among female-headed households.

It is not easy to define headship, and this might influence the comparisons of the incidence of poverty between male-headed and female-headed households. Studies apply a variety of techniques including definitions of headship used by national surveys, self-reported headship status by respondents in household surveys, and definitions based on contributions to household income (Rosenhouse, 1989; Kennedy and Haddad, 1994; Handa, 1993). Rosenhouse (1989), for example, applies the definition of the “working head”, the household member most intensively engaged in income-generating activities. Studies from Brazil, Jamaica and Ghana suggest that female heads are usually the main workers or earners in their households, but the finding for male heads is less clear (Barros et al., 1997; Handa, 1993; Lloyd and Gage-Brandon, 1993). For example, Barros et al (1997) show in Brazil that both self-reported female and male heads are also the main income earners. Using data from Ghana, Lloyd and Gage-Brandon (1993) find that the correspondence between headship status and main worker status is stronger for female heads than male heads. Specifically, about 70 percent of female-heads aged 15-60 are sole or main workers in their households. In contrast, only 50 percent of male-heads are sole workers in their households.

There is also substantial heterogeneity among female headed households. Depending on the region, the population of female-headed households include elderly women, widows, divorced women, single women with children, and women whose husbands are migrants (Schultz 2001; Buvinic and Anriquez 2003). Some women in this population, such as the elderly and widows, are more vulnerable to falling into poverty than others such as women who receive remittances from migrant husbands.

Why might female-headed households might be more likely to be poor than male-headed households? Barros et al. (1997) examine three factors that could explain why consumption expenditures might be lower in a household: (1) few adults have positive income, (2) the labor income of earners is low, and (3) the dependency ratio is high. Their comparison of the relative contribution of each of these factors for female-headed versus male-headed households suggests that the low labor income of the main earners in the household is the primary reason why femaleheaded households are poorer. Simulations show that if the earners in female-headed households had the average incomes of earners in male-headed households, their average per capita expenditure would be higher than that of male-headed households. This is primarily because female-heads are more likely to participate in the labor market relative to male-heads.

Are female-headed households more likely to be chronically poor than male-headed households? The answer to this question will be determined by the differences in male- heads’ and femaleheads’ ability to adopt risk prevention and risk-coping strategies. Lipton and Ravallion (1995) 30