The increasing participation of females in the labor force and household decision-making, among others, imply that female-headed households will further increase in number and, therefore, needs an investigation.  This study focuses on the October 1997 Labor Force Survey, and the subjects are households that are being headed by females.  It aims to determine the socio-demographic characteristics of the female-headed households in the Philippines, and provide information to support or negate some issues, particularly the perceived notion that female-headed households are less well off in the socio-economic sense than male-headed households, and that these households are more likely to live in poverty.

Using the Public Use File (PUF) of the October 1997 Labor Force Survey (LFS), which is regularly conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO), we would show some features of the female-headed households, and compare them with the usual characteristics of the male-headed households. Specifically, this would describe the female-headed households according to urbanity, age, marital status, educational attainment, labor force status, nature of employment, major occupation, major industry, class of workers, and hours of work. This study would also show selected characteristics of the household members.

The initial findings of the research show that most of the female heads are concentrated in the urban areas, while male heads are common in the rural areas.  Female heads are relatively older compared to male heads.  With respect to marital status, majority of the female heads are widows, while for the male heads, they are dominantly married.  Furthermore, there are relatively more female heads than male heads that have attained higher level of education, but female heads that have not completed any grade are relatively larger in number compared to the male heads.

Clerical and related workers groups is the most common occupation among the female heads, while agricultural, animal husbandry and forestry workers group is common among the male heads.  With regard to industry, majority of the female heads are in the services sector, while the male heads are predominantly employed in agriculture, fishery and forestry sector.  Both heads are chiefly permanent and own-account workers with no employee. 

With reference to household size, larger households are found among the male-headed households than the female-headed households.  In addition, the larger number of co-residential children is found among the male-headed households than in the female-headed households.