have a household member requiring dependent care than maleheaded
households. Moreover, the findings suggest, female-headed
households had about 6% more occurrences of members suffering
chronic illness than male-headed households.
Whether higher dependency ratios were due to the fact that the
male breadwinner was no longer present or whether they caused
the male family member to abandon the family, the findings help
to illustrate the crucial relationship between gender, household
responsibility and vulnerability