ABSTRACT
Usually the female household heads, the widows, the separated, and divorced are compared with male household heads who live with a partner (UN 1995), although it would be much more appropriate to compare them with male household heads who also live without a partner, who are also widowers, separated or divorced. Unfortunately, in the sample of this research only 5 per cent of male household heads without a partner were found and these 5 per cent comprise only 25 persons. Apparently no other study exists so far, which investigates specifically widowers, separated and divorced male household heads in Africa or the Third World in general.
