Poverty among Female Headed Households in India

In the patriarchal society of India, where male has the right of inheritance on property, headship of the household is also transferable to the male heir. A household is headed by female mostly due to loss of male breadwinner. Around 73 Per cent of female headed household is headed by widow and 12 per cent is headed by those, whose spouse is absent. Gendered vulnerability of households is reflected by the data of income, expenditure and assets, which shows that female headed household is on disadvantage on all the dimension of well being. The direct reason of poverty of female headed household can be observed in dependency of their household in the source of income which gives low return or work-force participation of head of household. Findings from logistic regression suggest that education, land-holdings, area of residence and source of livelihood are the important determinant which explain poverty among both male and female headed household, however marital status of head has emerged as an important determinant of poverty, which shows vulnerability among the household headed by widowed. This paper voices the duality of vulnerability faced by female and her household thus presents the less focused but important aspects of gender and demographic processes.