Children in Female-Headed Households: Interrogating the Concept of an 'Inter-Generational Transmission of Disadvantage' with Particular Reference to the Gambia, Philippines and Costa Rica, 2007
Sylvia Chant
London School of Economics, Gender Institute
E-mail:s.chant@lse.ac.uk

Grounded in a popular stereotype that female-headed households are the 'poorest of the poor', it is often assumed that women and children suffer greater poverty than in households which conform with a more common (and idealised) male-headed arrangement. In addition, a conjectured 'inter-generational transmission of disadvantage' in female-headed households is imagined not only to compromise the material well-being of children, but to compound other privations - emotional, psychological, social and otherwise. Beyond affecting young people in the short-term, these are also deemed to sow the seeds of future hardship. However, a mounting body of evidence suggests that household headship is not necessarily a good predictor of the start that children have in life, nor of their trajectories into adolescence and adulthood. On the basis of such evidence, the present paper seeks to interrogate -- and challenge -- some (mis)conceptions about female household headship and poverty among children. It finds that while risks to children's well-being may arise through discriminatory or hostile attitudes towards female-headed households in society at large, gender dynamics within male-headed units can be just as prejudicial in this regard. With this in mind, suggestions are offered for gender sensitive policies which might help to ensure that children in all poor households are guaranteed equality in basic needs and rights.