Event

The Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS) continues their Lunchtime Seminar series with Mark Figueroa presenting on the paper, "Gender, Headship and Household Structure in Jamaica: Evidence from Household Surveys” by Richard Leach, Rachel Folkes by Mark Figueroa.

The seminar takes place from noon at the . Please feel free to walk with lunch.

To view a printable version of this information, please click here. 

About Mark Figueroa

Figueroa is an Interdisciplinary Professorial Fellow at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), UWI–Mona.

A founding member of the Mona Women’s studies group in 1982, his research has been wide-ranging; encompassing Caribbean Political Economy, Gender and Socio-Economic Outcomes, the Political Economy of Jamaica's Electoral System, Caribbean Diasporas, Sustainable Development/Environmental Management, among others. In the past his gender research has focused on the changing patterns of achievement of males and females in Caribbean education and leadership including household headship as well as health seeking behaviours. More recently, he has been working on the transformation of the gender structure of society over the last 150 years, as well as sexuality and sexual orientation.

Paper Synopsis

This paper uses data, primarily from the household roster of the 2006 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions, to identify the extent to which female and male headships are reported in households with different structures. Factors explored include the head’s union status and whether others are present including: parents, a partner, other adults, grandchildren or children (with or without their biological parents). Here, children are considered in two ways: first, in terms of their relationship to the head and second, based on their being below the majority age of 18. We also consider the degree to which males and females reside in households which are single sex or mixed in terms of the adult and or total membership and in terms of the sex of the reported head. While it is well known that a small majority of households report a male head, we show that the minority of Jamaicans live in households reporting a male head (which have a smaller average size); and that for children the minority is reduced. There is evidence of considerable sex segregation and wide variations in the types of households which predominantly report male and as against female headships.

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