A GENDER AND MARITAL STATUS ANALYSIS OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME IN A LOW-INCOME TOWNSHIP

Steven Henry DUNGA

Authors

Steven Henry DUNGA North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus P. O. Box 1174, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa, Tel. 016 910-3372, Email: Steve.Dunga@nwu.ac.za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0911-144X

Keywords:

poverty, measurements, gender, marital status, income

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1515/subboec-2017-0002

The analysis of income at household level is highly important for understanding the poverty and for supporting the efforts to deal with poverty. Poverty measures can be calculated from a multitude of approaches. A common approach is to use household income and draw a minimum level of income required for a household to be considered above or below poverty. This paper looked at income at household level from a gender perspective and a marital status perspective in order to draw conclusions of the nature of household’s characteristics that are associated with higher or lower income as a proxy for poverty. Based on data collected in a low income township in South Africa, the regression analysis was applied to investigate the differences between different marital statuses and gender and how they are associated with different levels of income. The regression results reveal that female headed households have, on average, lower incomes compared to male headed households, and also, that married heads of households have higher incomes compared to the single, divorced, and widowed. The widowed had the lowest average income.

JEL classification: I32

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