<mark>The association of female principal applicants with higher rates of poverty before assistance when households have been matched suggests that there are gender‐specific barriers faced by female principal applicant households. Our results are consistent with women’s limited access to labor markets and economic opportunities being foremost among such barriers. With more income in the form of assistance or more adult men who can earn income in the household, the association between female principal applicants and a higher likelihood of poverty disappears.</mark>

# 5. Conclusion

<mark>Numerous reports about refugees say that women and children are especially vulnerable. By combining UNHCR’s ProGres data with household survey data, we have been able to shed more light on one aspect of this vulnerability—its association with income poverty for Syrian refugee households in Jordan whose</mark> principal applicant is a woman.

<mark>The combination of ProGres and JD‐HV data provides a rich source of information from which evidence on gender‐specific vulnerability to poverty can be distilled. The microdata stored in the ProGres database identifies a principal applicant and allows us to trace the relationship of people in each household to the principal applicant. By asking respondents to identify themselves as principal applicants as opposed to head of the household and by linking applicant status to receipt of benefits, the questionnaire for the ProGres database circumvents the social norms that make women reluctant to identify themselves as</mark> household heads or limit their ability to think of themselves in that way.

<mark>Our findings support the view that many women are especially vulnerable to poverty and shed some light on some of the drivers of the vulnerability of Syrian refugees in Jordan by establishing links between household poverty, female headship, and the demographic characteristics of households. One‐third of registered Syrian refugee households in Jordan have female principal applicants. Analysis of the demographic characteristics of male and female principal applicant households show that they are very different. Over half of all married female principal applicants are living without their spouse, a further quarter are widows and many others have no spouse as they are single, divorced or separated. In contrast, most male PAs (69 percent) are one of a married couple who are living together and only 13 per cent have an absent spouse. Altogether 93 percent of female principal applicants either have an absent spouse or</mark> no spouse, only 31 percent of male principal applicants are in this situation.

<mark>The disruption that forced displacement causes to family structures, and its gender specific impact is clearly captured by applying a gender lens to these data. Most female principal applicants (55 percent) are single caregivers and a further 30 percent are single person households. In fact, most female PAs (94 percent) live in nontraditional family types whereas only 36 percent of male principle applicants live in nontraditional family types. Overall, the composition of male and female PA households is markedly different. First, a higher proportion of adult males reside in households with a male principal applicant and the opposite is true for households with a female principal applicant. As male labor force participation is less constrained than female labor force participation, this is a likely risk factor for female principal applicant households. Second, some categories of family types appear to be especially vulnerable if the principal applicant is a woman or girl. Single‐caregiver households with female principal applicants have more children on average but less access to daily and irregular work than male principal applicant single caregiver households. While more of these female principal applicant households receive remittances</mark> 28