IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/got/gotcrc/076.html

What about the Women? Female Headship, Poverty and Vulnerability in Thailand and Vietnam

Author

Listed:
  • Stephan Klasen

    (Georg-August-University Göttingen)

  • Tobias Lechtenfeld

    (Georg-August-University Göttingen)

  • Felix Povel

    (Georg-August-University Göttingen)

Abstract

This paper investigates whether heterogeneous subgroups of female-headed households are worse off than traditional households headed by men. We analyze the determinants of consumption, shock exposure and vulnerability to poverty. Using unique panel data of over 4000 rural households from Thailand and Vietnam, we find strong signs of heterogeneity among the subgroups of female-headed households. In particular, in both countries de facto female-headed households are consumption richer and less vulnerable to poverty than households with a male head. In Vietnam de jure female-headed households are consumption poorer and more vulnerable to poverty. In Thailand de jure female-headed households do not differ significantly from male-headed households in terms of the analyzed welfare dimensions. These results show how widows and singles in Vietnam are not well protected against uncertainties. The results also indicate that differentiation by subgroups of headship is important for policy targeting and future research. We interpret this as a first step towards a more complete picture of vulnerability of female-headed households in the developing world.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephan Klasen & Tobias Lechtenfeld & Felix Povel, 2011. "What about the Women? Female Headship, Poverty and Vulnerability in Thailand and Vietnam," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 76, Courant Research Centre PEG.
    • Handle: RePEc:got:gotcrc:076
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.vwl.wiso.uni-goettingen.de/courant-papers/CRC-PEG_DP_76.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Michael Rogan, 2013. "Alternative Definitions of Headship and the 'Feminisation' of Income Poverty in Post-Apartheid South Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(10), pages 1344-1357, October.
    3. Harttgen, Kenneth & Klasen, Stephan, 2012. "A Household-Based Human Development Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 878-899.
    4. Michael Rogan, 2013. "Poverty and Headship in Post-apartheid South Africa, 1997–2006," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 491-511, August.
    5. Mahnaz Solhi & Marziyeh Hamedan & Masood Salehi, 2016. "Relationship between Quality of Life of Women-Headed Households and Some Related Factors in Iran," Global Journal of Health Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(10), pages 250-250, October.
    6. Misganaw Teshager Abeje & Atsushi Tsunekawa & Nigussie Haregeweyn & Zemen Ayalew & Zerihun Nigussie & Daregot Berihun & Enyew Adgo & Asres Elias, 2020. "Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality: Insights from the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 585-611, June.
    7. Juan Armando Torres Munguía, 2018. "What is behind homicide gender gaps in Mexico? A spatial semiparametric approach," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 236, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    8. repec:rza:wpaper:288 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • I39 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Other
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:got:gotcrc:076. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dominik Noe (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/82144.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.