Prevalence and patterns of female headed households in Latin America: 1970-1990

Our goal in this paper is to describe levels and trends of female headed ho useholds in Latin America during the past twenty years. The data available to us do not support the idea that the breakup of the traditional family, t he advent of massive rural-urban migratory flows, and the disruptions produ ced by rapid urbanization and industrialization leads inevitably to increas es in female headship. Female headship does increase by a small amount in t hree countries but declines or remains invariant everywhere else. We find r emarkable similarities across countries in the age-patterns of female heads hip as well as in the compositional factors accounting for it, namely, mari tal status, education, poverty and urban-rual residence.