Background on female-headed households
Key Terms and Phrases
Pictures from the Field
Relevant Links
Female heads of households (FHHs) :
1- Women who are the sole or major source of income to the family and livelihood. (By major we mean that her direct financial contribution to the household income exceeds any other by at least 30%).
2- Women who represent the family members’ vis-à-vis the community legally and socially.
3- Women who carry the main family responsibilities inside the household and outside it.
Typologies of Women Heads of Households:
From our field work we have identified ten types of women heads of households. While others are not recognized by the state, NGOs or religious groups as such.
Widows
Widows are women who have lost their husbands due to death rely solely or mainly on their income and not that of their children, relatives or parents for survival. Even in cases where they rely on a pension left by a husband but are still on their own, they are considered heads of households.
Divorcees
Divorcees are generally perceived negatively by the community at large, particularly by other women. Unlike a Widow, whose husband's absence is due to the will of God, a divorcee is seen to have brought her situation on her self. Unlike widows, divorcees can and actually do remarry. They are usually urged by their families and friends to remarry to protect their reputation, but also for economic reasons.
Deserted wives
Deserted women have been abandoned by their men temporarily or permanently. This category of women is increasing due to the increasing economic burden on men. As job opportunities decrease, poor men in slum areas are increasingly deserting their wives without providing them with financial support.
Wives of unemployed men
A large number of these women were the wives of men on pension, sick men, or old men who no longer work. The latter situation occurs because it is common for families to marry their young daughters to elderly men. In most of the cases interviewed, the young wife had to work in order to provide for her young children. However there were also cases where the husband had been laid off from a private business. Few, if any, businesses in the informal sector offer unemployment insurance.
Wives of u'rzu'i men
U'rzu'i is a slang term referring to any person who has no regular job and thus no regular and predictable income. U'rzu'i men are usually the skilled and unskilled manual laborers who work when there is a specific task for them to perform. They are never offered any contract or steady assignments. U'rzu'i is an Arabic term derived from the word rizk, which means the income or wealth that is determined for the individual by God
Wives of drunks or addicts
These are women whose husbands don't provide for them because they spend all their income, on drugs or drinking. These women are pitied by the community but are usually looked at with suspicion by government officials, who believes that they could be drug addicts as well.
Co-wives
It is not
Um-Emad
Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud
exerci taion
Um Ebraheem
Widow
Working as a maid for 20 years ago to support her children.
Um Hamada
Deserted
Working as trash collector to support her children