Guide on Gender Analysis of Census Data Full Draft of 6 December 2012 Contents
Methodology Box 7: Kinship classification
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- Table 24: Household composition by headship for Cambodia (2008) and El Salvador (2007)
- Table 25: Vanuatu (2009) - Mean number of persons by type of household and sex of head
- Figure 8: Swaziland (2007) – Percentage of female-headed households by tinkhundla (from lightest to darkest, the colour gradations indicate 6-11, 12-18 and 19-34 per cent)
- 5. Indicators
Methodology Box 7: Kinship classification One way to organize a more detailed classification is to compare across different household structures, first organizing across those with and without other adults in the household, then by male or female head, and finally by meaningful comparisons across different family nuclei. See the classification structure just below, illustrated with data from Cambodia (2008) and El Salvador (2007). Table 24: Household composition by headship for Cambodia (2008) and El Salvador (2007) Cambodia (2008) Without Other Adults With Other Adults Male head Female head Male head Female head Head without spouse or children 30,274 68,377 52,970 174,078 Couple without children 121,031 10,135 256,785 19,225 Couple with 1-2 children under 15 485,038 38,463 568,448 45,617 Couple with 3+ children under 15 246,319 18,834 288,206 22,632 Lone parent with 1-2 children under 15 12,286 81,563 32,561 173,868 Lone parent with 3+ children under 15 2,835 25,275 9,601 49,643 Other structure or unknown 5,204 2,629
Male head Female head Male head Female head Head without spouse or children 69,568 52,601 38,872 108,311 Couple without children 85,439 9,687 112,138 14,037 Couple with 1-2 children under 15 214,715 16,282 178,165 22,952 Couple with 3+ children under 15 88,305 7,301 83,394 10,522 Lone parent with 1-2 children under 15 6,358 54,673 26,867 123,728 Lone parent with 3+ children under 15 1,578 22,474 9,479 47,289 Other structure or unknown 1,222 528 Source: Computed based on REDATAM data base, ECLAC/CELADE 296. The proposed division by number of children is merely a suggestion. Depending on the level of fertility in a country, it may be more appropriate to divide parents by whether they have 0, 1 to 3, or 4 children or more. In other cases, a mere classification in terms of whether the family nucleus does or does not have children may be sufficient. Note that lone female heads of households with children and no other adults in both of the tables above account for only about 15 per cent of all female-headed households. About double that percentage is made up by female heads of household without spouse, but with children and other adult household members. However, about half or slightly over half of all female-headed households consist of women living alone, with a spouse or a spouse and children, or with other adults and no children under age 15. In particular, note the large number of female household heads living without spouse or children under age 15, but with other adults. In El Salvador these make up about 22 per cent of the female-headed households and in Cambodia almost 24 per cent. 297. In Cambodia, about 40 per cent of these households have people over 60 living in them, compared to the average of 23.5 per cent for all households (not shown in Table 24). These can consist of older women without spouses and with adult children, or younger women without spouse or children caring for elderly parents. Overall, there are 33,724 households where one woman between the ages of 15 and 50 lives together with older adults, without any children under age 15 or other adults. This is about 5 per cent of all households that have people over age 60 living in them. The number of households where one man between the same ages lives with adults over the age of 60, without children under age 15 or other adults, is smaller, namely 23,274. This suggests some tendency for the care of older persons to fall disproportionally on women, although the absolute size of the numbers and the difference between them is not as large as one might expect. In countries where this is an issue, especially in Eastern and Southeast Asia, it is recommended to produce tables that elaborate on these kinds of household compositions. 298. The age of the heads of household and possibly their marital status may be taken into consideration, as well as the existence of household members living abroad, which may indicate that the household is receiving remittances. One may also wish to further subdivide the households with “Other adults”, to allow the inclusion of structures that may be of particular interest, such as those that include the parents of the head of household or the spouse. Households headed by grandmothers that care for their grandchildren are a group of growing importance, not only in Sub-Saharan Africa (due to the impact of AIDS), but even in the United States, where they now comprise more than one fourth of all female-headed households with children (US Bureau of the Census, 2003). The “Other structures” in the above tables include households of several unrelated individuals living together and grandparents or aunts/uncles with grandchildren or nephews/nieces, without the parents. 299. Obviously, if all the relevant distinctions are made, the resulting table will end up being quite complex. The actual decision on how detailed the table should be will require some compromise between comprehensiveness and relevance of the possible subdivisions. For some purposes, it may be sufficient to disaggregate by broad age categories (e.g. less than 25, 25-49, 50-64, 65+) of the head of household or to omit the age disaggregation altogether. In countries with little international migration, the distinction between households that do or do not have members residing abroad may not be important. In other countries, where extended households are rare, it may not pay off to go into much detail about the identity of the "other adults" co-residing with the basic family nucleus. _____________________________________________ 300. Vanuatu (2011) provides an example of a country that did extensive tabulations of household composition by headship. Among others, it also disaggregated the data by rural-urban residence and by main source of income. The classification of household structures is different from the ones used above. Next to the number of male and female-headed households a detailed classification of household type is made (see Table 25). For nuclear households consisting of mothers and children and fathers and children, a sub-division was made according to the number of children under 15 belonging to the household (0 children, 1 – 3 children and 4 or more children). Also, the mean number of persons in the household per household type and sex of the head is given. Finally, the sex ratio (i.e. the number of males/females*100) for the heads of households of each household type is presented. For nuclear, single parent households, the sex ratios refer to the corresponding class: e.g. (the number of fathers with 0 children under 15)/(the number of mothers with 0 children under 15) *100. Table 25: Vanuatu (2009) - Mean number of persons by type of household and sex of head
Source: Population and Housing Census of Vanuatu (2009) 301. The sex ratios of head of household show that in nuclear families where a couple is present, males are 13 to 14 times more likely to be chosen as head of households than women. Because women are more likely than men to be a lone parent, sex ratios are very low. Note that there are almost ten times more women with more than 3 children under 15 than men (sex ratio = 11.1). Also among extended and composite households the sex ratios show that men or much more likely than women to be chosen as head. However, this chance is much lower than among nuclear household containing a couple. While the number of persons in household headed by males and females is more or less the same among nuclear households, extended and composite household headed by women are smaller. 302. The information on main source of income of Vanuatu households (not shown here) suggests that male-headed households are somewhat more likely to depend on wages or salaries (81.5 per cent in urban areas and 18.8 per cent in rural areas) than female-headed households (79.2 and 16.0 per cent, respectively). This is particularly the case for lone heads of households with children and extended households. In the case of couples in nuclear households with female heads are actually slightly more dependent on wages or salaries. Households that depend predominantly on remittances are relatively few (1-3 per cent), but increase to 5-8 per cent in the case of a few household categories, such as rural grandfathers or grandmothers caring for grandchildren, lone male household heads in rural areas living with parents or in-laws, and women living by themselves. 303. Although a more in-depth investigation of the household determinants of female labour force participation and the school attendance of children requires multivariate methods, there are some basic tabulations that one may produce in order to get at least an idea on how these characteristics vary between different types of households. These tabulations might include the following:
Figure 8: Swaziland (2007) – Percentage of female-headed households by tinkhundla (from lightest to darkest, the colour gradations indicate 6-11, 12-18 and 19-34 per cent) 
Source: Map 2.0, Census Atlas of the 2007 Population and Housing Census of Swaziland 5. Indicators 304. There are a number of conventional indicators of household composition that may be relevant for different kinds of gender analysis. Several of these go back to the household classification schedule introduced in the previous section. Rather than making comparisons in terms of male and female-headed households in the aggregate, which mix all of these distinct categories, it is much better to make comparisons between equivalent household composition categories. The comparison can be made both in terms of how much more common the female-headed households are represented in the relative incidence of poverty or vulnerability. Most census reports, however, still limit themselves to the conventional division of households into male-headed and female-headed, despite the known limitations of these categories. Figure 8 below illustrates the kind of maps that can be constructed with this information, based on the 2007 census of Swaziland. 305. Another household composition indicator, with more conventional applications, is the so-called headship ratio, i.e. the percentage of men or women of a given age that are heads of their households. It is useful primarily for household projections, as the population by age and sex at any given time, multiplied by the respective projected headship ratios, yields the number of households. Obviously, it also allows the comparison of the percentage of men and women of any particular age that are heads of their households. Again, as discussed earlier, the use of the sex of the head of household has some serious limitations for analytical purposes. Results obtained by comparing male/female heads of household should be backed up by more detailed analysis in which type of household is brought in as an additional explanatory variable. 306. The concept of headship ratio can be extended to other categories of household status, allowing the construction of descriptive indicators such as the percentage of women of a certain age who may be the following: a) Living in their parental household; b) Living by themselves in a one person household; c) Living with a husband or partner, without children; d) Living with a husband or partner, with children; e) Living without a husband or partner, but with children; or f) Living with unrelated household members, as a domestic servant. Comparing the evolution of these indicators between successive censuses can provide interesting information about changes in gender relations, e.g. an increase in the percentage of women aged 20-24 who are living alone or with a husband or partner, without children, which might indicate that young women are having greater opportunities to extend their education or to work, prior to forming families, than in the past. Obviously, these comparisons only make sense if the concept of head of household, and the operationalization of this concept (e.g. the response category, or who decides to designate the head) have not changed over time. Many countries have adapted their strategies to appoint the head of household. 307. In section 2, co-residing domestic servants were mentioned as a particularly vulnerable group. This suggests compiling data on the following indicators: a) Percentage of households (possibly divided by type, such as one-person, couple without children, or couple with children –preferably by broad age category) that have co-residing domestic servants, by sex of the domestic servant; and b) Percentage of working women that make their living as domestic servants (co-residing and not). 308. In recent decades many countries have seen a steady growth in the number of one-person households. Especially in Europe the rate of one-person households increased rapidly between 1970 and 1990. Sweden had the highest rate of one-person households (39.6 per cent) in 1990. The growth of one-person households has some important consequences for policy making. Research showed that for instance, energy consumption per person is higher for one-person households than for households with more persons (Hanssen; Scherg and Christensen, 2009). Living costs (per person) for one-person households are generally higher than for multi-person households. Also, a single person may be more vulnerable, as there is no back-up in case of unemployment or other mishaps. The ‘Worlds Women 2012 (United Nations, 2010 a) showed that women run a higher risk than men when living in a one-person household. Therefore, ample attention should be given to this category when studying gender issues in poverty research. 309. An interesting perspective on household composition is that of the children. Here one may compute the percentage of children under age 15 (or another relevant age limit) that live: 1. With both parents and no other adult household members; 2. With the mother only; 3. With the father only; 4. Without their parents, cared for by grandparent(s) or other family members; 5. With both parents and a grandmother and/or domestic servant; and 6. With the mother and a grandmother and/or domestic servant. 310. Another, potential source of useful information has to do with the physical characteristics of the housing unit, in addition to the characteristics of the household as such. These may provide useful information on the level of comfort and housekeeping chores. For example, the proportion of girls/women living in a dwelling without easy access to water or which uses firewood for cooking is a good indicator of the burden they assume to fetch water and cooking fuel for the household, which may have adverse consequences for girls’ school attendance and women’s labour market participation. The proportion of women living in dwellings without a proper kitchen, especially if cooking is done using firewood or charcoal, is an indicator of the health conditions to which women are exposed in preparing food. The size of the household may be used as a further qualifier of the amount of work involved in these household chores. 311. The following indicators from the Minimum Gender Indicator Set approved by the UN Statistical Commission in February of 2012 can whenever the data are available be computed from census data: 1. Proportion of population using the internet, by sex (asked, for example, in the 2010 census of Qatar, in addition to computer use); 2. Proportion of population using mobile/cellular telephones, by sex; and 3. Access to mass media and information and communications technology. Download 4.06 Mb. Share with your friends:
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