in thousands Afghanistan - National Risk and Vulnerability Survey 2011-2012, Living Conditions Survey NRVA 2011 12 report

Figure 3.2: Households and population, by household size in percentages 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20+ Households Population A very small proportion – less than one percent – of households are female-headed see Table 3.3. In the Afghan context, the absence of a male head of household can signify a highly vulnerable position of the household members in terms of income security and social protection. In a similar way, households headed by young persons under 18 or old people 65 and over without younger adult male household members can ind themselves exposed to economic and social threats. The occurrence of any one of these three categories of household heading is in 3.1 percent of the cases. This represents 539 thousand people 2.0 percent of the total population living in such potentially vulnerable households. More than one in three households 36 percent is composed of two or more generations. Of the population, just over one out of four persons 27 percent live in such multi-generation households. Table 3.3: Households and population, by household characteristics in percentages Characteristics of head of household Percentage of households population Headed by female 0.7 0.4 Headed by child under 18 0.4 0.3 Headed by elderly 65+ without younger male adults 2.0 1.3 Multi-generation household a 36.2 27.2 a Multi-generation households are those that include three generations or more.

3.3.2 Marriage patterns

Marital status is a key principle in the social relations in Afghan society. Marriage as a universal phenomenon is indicated by the fact that less than one percent of the population of 35 and over remained unmarried. In the total population, however, 63.2 percent is unmarried due to the large representation of the age cohorts under-15 – of whom virtually no one is married – and 15-24 – of whom 70.3 percent is still unmarried Table 3.4. 12 POPULATION STRUCTURE AND CHANGE 13 Table 3.4: Population, by marital status, and by sex, age in percentages Sex, age Married Widowed Divorced or separated Never Total Male 0-14 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 100.0 15-24 17.8 0.1 0.0 82.2 100.0 25-39 88.3 0.3 0.0 11.3 100.0 40-64 97.2 2.3 0.0 0.5 100.0 65+ 85.8 13.6 0.0 0.6 100.0 Total 33.1 0.8 0.0 66.1 100.0 Female 0-14 0.1 0.0 0.0 99.9 100.0 15-24 41.3 0.2 0.0 58.5 100.0 25-39 93.8 1.6 0.1 4.5 100.0 40-64 81.7 17.3 0.2 0.8 100.0 65+ 41.2 57.2 0.9 0.6 100.0 Total 36.3 3.6 0.1 60.0 100.0 Both sexes 0-14 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0 100.0 15-24 29.6 0.1 0.0 70.3 100.0 25-39 91.1 1.0 0.0 7.9 100.0 40-64 89.6 9.6 0.1 0.6 100.0 65+ 70.2 28.9 0.3 0.6 100.0 Total 34.7 2.2 0.0 63.2 100.0 While divorce and separation are practically invisible in the marital status distribution, the incidence of widowhood increases with age, especially for women. Whereas around 2 and 14 percent of men aged, respectively, 40-64 and over-65 are widowers, the corresponding igures for women are 17 and no less than 57 percent. In absolute numbers, Afghanistan has around 108 thousand widowers, but no less than 471 thousand widows. The main cause of this large number of widows is large age differences between spouses. Irrespective of the cause, widowed women can be classiied as being in a vulnerable position in Afghan society. The marital gender differentiation is clearly visible in Figure 3.3: women tend to get married earlier than men and become widowed earlier and in signiicantly larger shares. POPULATION STRUCTURE AND CHANGE