FEMALE-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS AND FAMILY WELFARE IN RURAL ECUADOR

This paper examines the relationships between female headship status o f households and family welfare in rural Ecuador. We first review theo retical arguments for why female headship may affect family welfare. D escriptive analysis indicates that female-headed households are worse off according to a variety of measures of welfare. We then focus on ch ildren's school enrollment as a specific measure of welfare and estima te a multivariate model to assess the effects of female headship on th e probability of enrollment. We find that children in female-headed ho useholds are disadvantaged in this respect and that the effect of fema le headship varies across marital status categories of the female head .