LIMITATIONS OF THE FEMALE-HEADED HOUSEHOLD APPROACH TO POVERTY MEASUREMENT

This paper challenges the use of poverty incidence among female-headed households as a measure of feminization of poverty. It proposes an alternative framework of human poverty, focusing not on incomes but on human out-comes in terms of choices and opportunities that a person faces. KEYWORDS Concept of poverty, measurement of poverty, opportunities That “women are poorer than men ” has become a truism. And the pro-portion of female-headed households whose incomes fall below the “poverty line ” has been broadly adopted as a measure of women’s poverty. This paper challenges this measurement approach and its focus on income and proposes an alternative approach focusing on human outcomes and using the conceptual framework of “human poverty ” (Human Development Report 1997). Written by a co-author of the HDR97, the article summarizes the concept of human poverty presented in that report and expands on its implications for the concept of feminization of poverty