The effects of income shocks on female headship and poverty in Brazil

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effects of income shocks on the households’ chances of becoming headed by women and its effects on the female-headed households’ poverty vulnerability in the Brazilian metropolitan regions. For that, the unemployment rate was used as an income shock, considering both positive and negative variations in the general economy and the sectors that mostly employ men and women. The results suggest that negative income shocks decrease female household headship, while positive ones cannot always increase them in the Brazilian metropolitan regions. Also, negative and positive income shocks make households headed by women more likely to be poor.