Who is the Head of Your Household?

Who is the head of your household? It probably depends on who you ask. In my household, you will either find out that I am the head of the household, my husband is the head of the household, or that my bulldog is the head of my household. It depends on how you measure. Is it who makes most of the decisions? Is it who makes the most money? Is it who spends most of the money? Is it who the waiter brings the bill to?

This is an important question that is a standard indicator used all over the world in data collection, especially by projects in developing countries. Whether or not I qualify for various programs, whether or not you think your project is working, and many more answers to research questions are entirely depending on who is the head of the household and how it is defined.

And yet we almost never know.

A lot of projects and donors and large organizations measure and report progress broken out or disaggregated by the gender of the head of the household. And there are many good reasons for this. When there are limited budgets, prioritizing households that might benefit the most from resources or projects makes sense. When calculating impact and progress, it’s very helpful to disaggregate findings along key social power dynamics in order to understand what’s going on in a more nuanced way.