Households Headed by Women: Income, Employment and Household Organization (Women IN Development) (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION The poverty of households headed by women has emerged as an important development issue in the recent past. Evidence from many developing countries, specially in Latin America and Africa, has underlined the economic vulnerability of this group and predicted an increasing incidence of female-headed households in developing societies [Buvinic and Youssef (1978); Kossaudji and Mueller (1983); Merrick and Schmink (1983)]. Among Asian countries sample surveys have revealed a significant proportion of female-headed households in Sri Lanka, Malaysia and some states in India (Visaria 1980).