Equality in consumption expenditure

Figure 6.4 Percentage of poor households, by household size Figure 6.5 Percentage of poor households, by number of children under 15 and adults aged 15-59 Even though reverse causality is well possible, it is likely that large household size due to high fertility and a large number of children negatively affects the per-capita consumption level in the household. Therefore, the higher fertility among Kuchis resulting in a larger number of children per household see chapter 3 can be a contributing factor to their higher poverty incidence and poverty depth.

6.5.2 Characteristics of the head of household

The head of household is in most instances the single most determining person for the conditions of living in the household. This is especially the case in Afghanistan where households are almost exclusively male-headed 98 percent; see Section 3.3.1 on household structure and men are the main or sole decision makers in almost all life domains Poverty incidence and poverty profiling 59 Poverty incidence and poverty profiling 60 see Section 10.2.1 on household decision making. Therefore, it can be expected that the attributes of the head of household have considerable predictive power for the poverty status of the household. From Figure 6.6 it can be deduced that in the rare cases that households are female-headed, on average poverty is more widespread than in male-headed households. Underlying factors could be that women have less access to employment see Section 4.2 on labour force and employment or that widows lack the support of a partner for income generating. Figure 6.6 Percentage of poor households, by selected attributes of household head Literacy and educational attainment apparently are key factors in the explanation of poverty, and therefore should be incorporated in poverty reduction strategies. The ability to read and write and knowledge learned in the education system are strong facilitators for adequate performance on the labour market and in social life. Households of illiterate heads are 31 percent more likely to be poor than those of literate heads, and the household poverty rate decreases steadily with higher levels of education: the likelihood of being poor for households with uneducated heads is 1.5 to 5 times higher than those with heads that have any educational attainment above middle school. However, there is not very much differentiation between households of heads with middle school and primary school. The age of the household head does not show any clear effect on poverty data not shown.