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History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

Norms, economic conditions and household formation: A case studyof the Arab world

Jennifer C. Olmsted⁎

Dept. of Economics, Drew University, Madison, NJ, 07940, USA

Abstract

Very little work has examined the question of household structure in the Arab region, despite the fact that there has been spec-ulation that changes in household patterns have been occurring in recent years due to modernization, urbanization and changingmarriage patterns. Using a number of primary data sources, including household surveys from Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Egypt,as well as analysis by historians that uses archival sources, this paper compares household structure patterns across time and space,to answer the question—how have household patterns changed and do observed changes provide insights into the impact normsand/or structural factors have and will play in shaping household patterns? The data suggest that while often perceived as beingthe dominant household structure, extended family households are not the norm in the Arab world, nor have they necessarily pre-dominated since the 1800s. In addition, patterns vary considerably across communities, with extended family households occurringmore frequently in Syria and Yemen. Some trends that provide insight into the future, as well as being suggestive of possiblechanges in norms, include: the rising age of marriage; the increasing likelihood that women in particular will never marry; andthe increasing ease, despite high levels of youth unemployment, for young people, including young women, to set up their ownhouseholds. These trends also raise numerous questions about how much changes that are occurring are a function of individualchoice or are shaped by cultural or economic pressures. Patterns currently being observed also provide insights into changes thatare likely to occur in the future, since current trends suggest that future household patterns may be quite different in the comingyears, and that youth, and in particular young women, may be in the process of gaining more autonomy in a number of countries.© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Gender; Youth; Family; Syria; Lebanon; Yemen

1. Introduction

Scholars have long debated how household structuresare shaped by and shape social, political and economicconditions. Most of the focus of this literature thoughhas been on Europe. Studies that address such questionsin the context of the Middle East are limited and thosethat focus on the Arab world are particularly sparse,

⁎ Tel.: +(973) 408-3417; fax: +(973) 408-3142.E-mail address: jolmsted@drew.edu.

1081-602X/$ - see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.hisfam.2011.07.007

since most of the historic studies have examined datafor Turkey. The Arab world, it is often assumed, is a re-gion where patriarchal, patrilocal, patrilineal norms haveled to multi-generational households, with male childrengenerally co-residing with their parents, while femalechildren marry and establish residence with their spouse'sfamily. Drawing on both historical and contemporarydata, one of the aims of this paper is to explore howwide-spread multi-generational households are. Also ofinterest is the question of the ways cultural and economicfactors have shaped household patterns and trends, witha particular focus on the question of how norms

402 J.C. Olmsted / History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

surrounding gender and age determine household forma-tion and whether changes in household make-up can pro-vide evidence of changes in those norms.

In the Arab world historically, marriage has been near-ly universal, and intergenerational expectations highlygendered, which has led to a pattern where daughtersleave their parents' households upon marriage, whilesons often remain. Sons have also been expected to takea far greater role in providing financial support for theirparents as they age, even in the event that they do notco-reside with their parents (Olmsted, 2005a).

A number of major social and economic changes haveaffected the Arab world in recent years. Along with fairlystandard changes related to economic development, suchas increased urbanization and a shift from an agriculturalto a service based economy, the presence of oil hasshaped the regional economy in a rather unique manner.During the 1970s in particular, oil prices rose consider-ably and economic growth was quite rapid in the region,not only among oil exporting countries, but also in thenon-oil countries, which became the labour suppliers forthe oil rich, labour poor Gulf states. Oil not only broughtin considerable revenue, leading to rapidly rising incomesand levels of health and education, but it also kept unem-ployment rates low throughout the region for many years.In the early 1990s oil prices declined, and at the sametime the Gulf states began altering their migration poli-cies, reducing migration opportunities in countries suchas Egypt and Yemen. Because this was occurring at atime of an unprecedented population bulge, a number ofthe countries in the region began to experience unprece-dentedly high levels of youth unemployment in the1990s (Baldwin-Edwards, 2005; World Bank, 2004b).

In the contemporary period a considerable amountof work has focused on fertility trends and demographymore generally (see for example Obermeyer, 1995;Williamson and Yousef, 2002; Olmsted, 2003). Onthe issue of household formation though, far less hasbeen published. Various authors (e.g. Moghadam, 2003;World Bank, 2004a) assert that household structure, aswell as marital trends, have been changing, without pro-viding extensive data illustrating these trends. The aimof this paper is thus to both explore empirically contem-porary marriage and household structure patterns in theArabworld, as well as to identify whether any discernablesocial changes can be detected through an examination ofboth historical and contemporary household level data.

2. Theorizing household formation

What can explain differences in household size andhow are economic conditions affected by and effect

household size and make-up? Hajnal identifies threefactors that he argues were instrumental to the smallhouseholds observed in Northern Europe as early asthe 17th century: 1. late age of marriage; 2. economicstructures that encouraged youth to seek employmentoutside of their parental household; 3. retirement con-tracts. More generally one can argue that economic,legal and social factors interact to shape household out-comes. One of the most interesting questions that Haj-nal's work raises is the issue of causality betweenhousehold formation and economic conditions. Hajnalasserts for example that “[j]oint household populationsand Northwest European populations must have reactedin fundamentally different ways to adverse economicdifficulties” (1982: 481), suggesting that delayed mar-riage was the response to underemployment in NorthernEurope, but not elsewhere, and that this in turn acted asa form of population control, which itself had implica-tions for economic development.

Building on Hanjal's work, DeMoor and Van Zanden(2010) suggest that in the case of Northwestern Europe,female employment and human capital accumulationwere key factors that shaped European marriage patterns.Their work highlights the importance of gender norms indefining marriage and household outcomes. They arguethat marketization processes (particularly an increase inwage labour markets) occurred very early in Northwest-ern Europe and women in particular gained autonomythrough this shift, which in turn shaped householdformation.

More generally, it is clear that a dynamic processtakes place between norms and economic outcomes,where on the one hand economic factors (re)shapenorms, while on the other hand, particular economicconditions affect communities differently, dependingon the norm structure that is in place at a particulartime in a particular location.

Conceptualizing the relationship between economicfactors, norms and household formation is complicatedbecause not only must micro and macroeconomic issuesbe separated, but social and political factors must alsobe disentangled in order to get a clear idea of the direc-tion of causality. A rigorous statistical test of the direc-tion of causality between household structure andeconomic factors is beyond the scope of this paper. Ofmore interest for this paper is the question of hownorms are shaped by economic conditions, as well aswhether norms and household formation patterns maybecome out of sync due to adverse economic condi-tions. For example can it be argued in the case ofthe contemporary Arab world that age of marriage is ris-ing due to changes in norms or adverse economic

1 A distinction is often made between the region of the Middle East,which generally is defined as including Turkey, Iran and Israel, andthe Arab world, which excludes these three countries, but includesNorth Africa. This paper will focus on the Arab world, with a partic-ular emphasis on Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, due to dataavailability.

403J.C. Olmsted / History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

conditions that preclude youth from marrying due tohigh unemployment rates and that this in turn has re-duced the speed with which nuclear households haveemerged? Similarly, what economic and social factorscan explain the rising rate of never married Arabwomen and how is this phenomenon likely to affect fu-ture household formation patterns in the region?

3. Empirical studies of household structure in theArab world

In many ways marriage norms in the Arab worldlooked similar to Southern Europe in the 1800s. Mar-riages were generally arranged, and in cases wheremulti-generational households were maintained, wivesmoved in with their in-laws. Islam stipulates thatwomen receive a mahr (bride price), comprised of botha payment at the time of the marriage and in the caseof divorce. Muslim women's primary claims to wealthwere thus linked to their marriage (Zarinebaf-Shahr,1996), although women also gained wealth throughother means. Islamic law also stipulates that upon mar-riage a man is responsible for providing economic main-tenance to his wife (Tucker, 2008).

Identifying the role that the legal framework wouldhave played in shaping household outcomes is quitecomplicated in the context of the Ottoman empire. Themajority of Ottoman residents were Muslim, but Chris-tian and Jewish minority communities, who wouldhave been subject to differing family law practices alsoexisted. Complicating issues further, Afifi (1996) arguesthat Egyptian Copts (a Christian sect) generally regis-tered their marriages in Shari'a Islamic court, possiblyin order to take advantage of more flexible divorcelaws within Islam. In addition, Hanna (1996) and Tucker(2008) argue that there was considerable legal pluralismwithin Islam before the mid 1800s. For example in enter-ing marriage contracts, Arab Muslims could choosefrom a number of schools, such as Hanafi, Malaki andShafi'i. Thus it is difficult before the mid 19th century,to identify with precision the legal structures thatwould have shaped marriages/inheritance patterns,since no single legal tradition prevailed. By the mid19th century though, reforms that attempted to unifythe legal structure had occurred, so that one can arguethat, at least in theory, Arab subjects living anywherein the Ottoman empire would have been subject to thesame legal structure by this period.

As remarked on by Doumani (2003), Olmsted(2005b) and Yount and Rashad (2008), studies of Mid-dle Eastern household formation are rather sparse. Thisis particularly true when it comes to historical studies of

Arab households.1 Doumani (2003) suggests that a lackof archives that could be used to reconstruct householdpatterns makes studies of the region difficult. As a re-sult, scholars have had to rely mostly on legal records,which provide a very incomplete picture of householdstructures. A valuable exception is two chapters in thevolume edited by Doumani (2003), which use earlycensus data to address the question of householdpatterns.

Fargues (2003a), Okawara (2003) and Duben (1985)provide some insights into household patterns in Cairo,Damascus and Istanbul respectively, by examining cen-sus data from the mid 1800s and early 1900s. Fargues(2003a:38) points out that extended family householdswere quite rare in Cairo, in 1848, with an averagehousehold size of only 3.54. He argues that this was pri-marily because of high mortality rates, but also becauseyoung boys were often removed from their parentalhouseholds at a very early age for the purpose of educa-tion, employment or conscription. The biggest changein household structure generally occurred between theages of 10 and 14, and by age 19, 77.2% of males hadleft their “family of origin (36).” Data he presents sug-gest that in fact the majority of both boys and girlswere no longer living with their parents by age 10.Death of one or both parents was quite common andin a number of cases boys were observed setting uptheir own households at a very young age. The censusincluded records of five to nine year old boys livingalone or only with siblings.

Girls also often left their parental household at anearly age, primarily for the purpose of marriage, butalso sometimes for employment. While young never-married females appear not to have had the option ofsetting up their own households, Fargues reports that15.9% of all Cairo households were headed by womenin 1848, with this group being made up of divorcees,widows and concubines.

The patterns uncovered by Okawara (2003) usingsomewhat later data (1907) for Damascus tell a very dif-ferent story, suggesting that considerable variation inhousehold formation traditions existed in various partsof the Arab world. Okawara compares his findings forDamascus with Duben's earlier work on Istanbul. Par-ticularly in the case of Damascus, where multiple familyhouseholds were far more common, he finds it

404 J.C. Olmsted / History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

important to distinguish hane from households, becauseof the structure of domiciles, which were often large andas a result may have contained multiple families. Meanhane size in Damascus in 1907 was 11.3, of which 8.4members were generally related, while the remainingmembers were non-family members. Okinawa adjuststhese numbers to reflect what he thinks is a valid house-hold size, and comes up with an average of 6.6. By con-trast mean household size in Istanbul was considerablysmaller, at 4.2 and as noted by Fargues, in Cairo aver-age household size was even smaller, at 3.54. Not sur-prisingly, this also meant that in Damascus it was farmore common to observe multi-generational house-holds, with Okawara finding that 57.7% contained mul-tiple generations. As a result, Okinawa identifiesDamascus, but not Istanbul as following what Laffetthas called the ‘Mediterranean’ household type. Fargues'study suggests that Cairo also did not fit the Mediterra-nean household type, although Fargues does argue(without providing any data) that in rural areas largerhousehold prevailed, suggesting considerable variationwithin Egypt during the mid-1800s.

Unfortunately, since these studies focus on house-hold formation in large cities in the Middle East, theydo not provide an accurate picture of the country as awhole. But one can perhaps infer what might havebeen happening in the countryside in Egypt and Syria,by looking at Turkey for which there are considerablymore studies/data. Duben (1985) for example compilesdata from various sources and suggests that in ruralareas of Turkey average household size was likely inthe range of 5.3 to 6.5, suggesting that households in Is-tanbul were smaller by one to two persons, compared torural areas of Turkey. It's possible, but not certain, thatsimilar patterns prevailed elsewhere in the Middle East,although this is probably more the case for Egypt thanSyria, where even in urban areas large householdsprevailed.

Given how much variation was found between citieswithin the Ottoman empire in the mid to late 19th cen-tury, it is doubtful that legal structures in general andIslam more generally can be identified as a defining fac-tor that could explain particular household patterns. De-spite being under the same legal structure by the mid-1800s, dwelling patterns differed considerably betweenCairo and Damascus. Furthermore, Renieri (2002) ar-gues that rural Christian communities in Anatoliawould have had marital/household formation patternsthat were quite similar to rural Muslim communities,with girls marrying at a young age (16 typically) andhigh levels of joint households. She argues that reli-gious differences thus had little explanatory power,

and instead economic structures, in particular agricul-tural practices, provide a more sound basis for explain-ing why household patterns differed sharply from whatwas happening in Istanbul.

Fargues (2003a) points to high mortality rates as onefactor explaining patterns observed in Cairo. Owen(1981:25) confirms that mortality rates have historicallybeen quite high compared to Europe. He states: “thefirst Egyptian natural life tables produced in the 1930sestimated that the average male Egyptian could expectto live only until the age of thirty-one, roughly thesame span as that of a late thirteenth century English-man.” He goes on to point out that “only one in fourMuslim Palestinians and one in three Egyptians reachedthe age of twenty, as opposed to nearly three out of fourmen born in England” in the 1920s. Owen then con-cludes that there is no reason to believe life expectancyrates were any better in the 1800s.

Life expectancy for urban dwellers in Damascus andAnatolian peasants though would probably not havebeen that different, so the mortality story, while helpful,does not provide an entirely satisfactory answer to thequestion of why so much variation occurred in the re-gion in terms of household size either. Nor can age ofmarriage data shed much light on patterns. In Cairo, de-spite a very low average age of marriage (13.8 years)for women (male age of marriage was higher at 20,but still low compared to other areas), household sizesremained small. In Istanbul by contrast, the age of mar-riage was quite high, with men on average marrying at30, while women married at 20 (Duben, 1985). And fer-tility rates have limited explanatory power as well. Far-gues states that having six to ten children was the normin Cairo in the mid 1800s, but goes on to point out thatbecause of high child mortality rates (he estimates thatonly about half of all children survived to adulthood)household size remained fairly small on average. Meri-wether (1996) states that in Aleppo (another city inSyria), the average couple had three (surviving) chil-dren in the 1800s. She also cites some earlier work byTucker, where similar family sizes were observed inNablus. In all likelihood these patterns would alsohave prevailed in Cairo and Damascus as well, and yethousehold size differed considerably between Cairoand Damascus.

One factor that contributed to smaller average house-hold size in both Istanbul and Cairo would have beenthe high rates of solitary households. In Istanbul12.9% of households were made up of solitary individ-uals, while in Cairo the rate was 16.5%. By contrast, inDamascus less than 1% of households were made up ofone person. While in Cairo widowed women were

405J.C. Olmsted / History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

among those most likely to find themselves livingalone, as described by Fargues, quite a few youngmen and even children were found in one person house-holds. In Damascus, by contrast, neither youth nor el-derly were likely to have set up separate households,suggesting clear differences in norms between Syriaand Egypt in the mid to late 19th century.

The historical studies included in the Doumani(2003) collection, as well as studies carried out for Tur-key, illustrate the considerable variation in householdsize and composition in the late 1800s/early 1990s inthe Ottoman region and indicate that three or more gen-erations living together occurred in some rural areas, aswell as in Damascus, but was not the norm in Cairo andIstanbul and possibly also other cities. Clearly differingnorms and social expectations played a role in shapingthese different outcomes. Legal and economic differ-ences are more difficult to tease out, given that thelegal structure was ostensibly the same throughout theempire by the mid 19th century.

It is also difficult to determine what happened in themid 1900s. It's possible that the prevalence of multiplegeneration household actually rose in this period, peak-ing in the mid 20th century, due to improved health out-comes and increased longevity, although againdata sources make it difficult to confirm this assertion.Barakat (1985) for example states that the percent of ex-tended households in Iraq declined from “82% in the1940s to 34% in 1975 (37),” which lends some supportto the argument that the mid 1900s may have been theperiod where multiple generation households were themost prevalent in the Arab world (although no studyof Iraq in the 19th century is available to confirmthis). But it should also be noted that despite providingdata from Iraq to the contrary, Barakat goes on to arguethat multiple generation families were not the norm inArab communities in the mid 20th century either. Tosupport this claim he cites a study by Prothro andDiab, who indicate that “the majority of wives inter-viewed who married in the 1960s never lived withtheir in-laws (Prothro and Diab as quoted in Barakat,37)” although it is not clear what area this study is refer-ring to, or what the scope of that study was.

More recent data certainly suggest that nuclear fami-lies were by far the most common in Egypt in the mid1990s. Khedr and el Zeini (2003) analyze the 1995Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS)and find that the percent of extended family householdswas 19.5 in 1995, with another 5.4% of households con-sisting of a single person, which is quite a bit lower thanthe numbers reported for Cairo in the earlier century.The remainder (75.1%) consisted of nuclear households.

Single person households were primarily females (63%)over the age of 60 (55.8%), most of whom were widows.

As suggested by Hajnal (1982) and De Moor andVan Zanden (2010) a key issue worth examining in con-junction with household formation is the question ofmarriage patterns. Divorce for example may lead to ahigher proportion of female headed households. Inter-estingly Fargues (2003b) points out that divorce ratesin the region have actually been declining over the lastcentury, he argues primarily because the legal structurehas made it more difficult for men to divorce. Cuno(2008) makes a similar argument with a focus specifi-cally on Egypt.

Another trend that Fargues (2003b: 262) remarks onis the ‘birth of female celibacy’. As documented byRashad and Osman (2003) and Rashad et al. (2005),changes in laws, rising female education, and rising fe-male employment have been linked to rising age of firstmarriage. These authors also document the fact that in anumber of countries the number of women who nevermarry is also rising. A number of empirical studiesalso support this assertion. Saxena et al. (2004) for ex-ample find that for Lebanon, in 1996, 15% of womenaged 40 to 49 had never been married. The number ofwomen never marrying, when compared to 1970 data,appears to have doubled for the five year cohorts be-tween 35 and 49. And never married rates are particular-ly high in the capital city Beirut, for both men andwomen. Still, as in other parts of the Arab world, menare far less likely to be in the never married categorythan women.

The reasons women do not marry are complex andmay involve a shifting of gender norms in a number ofways. On the one hand the higher number of womenwho never marry may be linked to women's increasedability to have their own careers and become economi-cally independent. Some women with increased employ-ment opportunities may simply be choosing not tomarry. But Olmsted (2005a) argues that family and de-mographic pressure may play roles in this outcome aswell. As fertility rates decline, for example, parents areless likely to have sons, and so the expectation fordaughters to care for elderly parents may be rising.Higher rates of male migration may also contribute toshifting gender norms. Since men are more likely to mi-grate, daughters may be increasingly expected to supporttheir aging parents. And since traditionally the expecta-tion is that married women care for their in-laws, parentswho may be increasingly worried about who will carefor them in the face of declining fertility and high migra-tion rates, may end up pressuring one of their daughtersto remain unmarried.

406 J.C. Olmsted / History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

Other factors that may contribute to women remainingunmarried are the educational mismatch between men andwomen, the higher migration rates of men and the higherpropensity for men to marry outside of their community(particularly in the case where they migrate). Althoughmen tend to marry women with equal or lesser amountsof education, women in a number of Arab countries nowhave higher college attendance rates than men (WorldBank, 2004a). Up to a point education may improvewomen's marriage prospects, given social norms thatvalue education either because it is seen to improvewomen's ability to perform household duties, or to engagein paid employment. But the most highly educated womenmay also be less marriageable, because of male tastes forwives with equal or less education. Such trends are exacer-bated by the fact that historically the more educated menare more likely to migrate in many Arab communities(Killian, Olmsted and Doyle, nd), further reducing thepool of ‘eligible’ men. This problem may be particularlyacute among minority communities, such as Christians,where marrying outside one's religion is generally taboo,but the cohort of marriageable men may be particularly di-minished by migration. And in conflict areas, higher malemortality rates, as was seen in the case of Lebanon, mayalso play a role.

Saxena et al. (2004), using Lebanese data, find evi-dence that increased education improves women'schances of marriage, but do not find that this trend is re-versed for the most highly educated women. In subse-quent years though, female education outcomes havecontinued to rise faster than men's, so more recentdata should be analyzed to clarify whether their findingis still valid.

Two issues that are directly relevant to the questionof household structure and have received the most atten-tion among scholars studying the Arab world are fertil-ity trends and the problem of youth unemployment. Fora long time scholars were puzzled about the slow de-cline in fertility rates in the Arab world, and various the-ories were put forth for why this was the case. But in themore recent period, this ‘puzzle’ has for the most partbecome a less interesting question, since, as illustratedin Table 1, with a few exceptions, fertility declineswhile late, were extremely rapid, so that a number ofcountries in the region are close to the replacement fer-tility rate of 2.1.

The problem of youth unemployment is directly re-lated to fertility trends. Because child and maternal mor-tality rates declined faster than fertility rates did, theregion is now subject to a massive demographic bulge,which is putting pressure on labour markets in a numberof Arab countries. At the same time, migration to the

Gulf, which for a number of poorer countries in the re-gion has been a release valve, is less of an option atpresent.

The issues of the fertility transition and youth unem-ployment are both relevant in asking the question—howhas household formation changed in a select number ofArab countries, in recent years, and what role have eco-nomic and social factors played in (re)shaping house-hold structures?

4. Data analysis

In order to better understand contemporary householdpatterns in the Arab region, Household Income and Ex-penditure Survey (HIES) data for Egypt (2000 and2009), Lebanon (2005), Syria (1996 and 2007) andYemen (1998 and 2006) are examined. Except in thecase of Lebanon, two years of data were available, anda comparison can be made between the data for the earlierand later years. In addition to comparing across time, it isuseful to compare across countries, since countries in theregion are at differing levels of development. Of particu-lar interest is a comparison of Lebanon and Yemen,which provide two extremes.

As indicated in Table 1, Lebanon has relatively highper capita GDP numbers, as well as very high educationlevels and a high level of urbanization. Yemen remainsquite poor, is fairly rural, and still has high rates of illit-eracy. On the one hand, comparing these two countriesmight provide some insights into how the process of de-velopment shifts household structure, with Yemenrepresenting the past, while Lebanon represents the fu-ture. Yet, an examination of Egypt and Syria is alsoquite instructive, precisely because these are two coun-tries with similar levels of development in terms of ur-banization and per capita GDP, and yet wheredifferences in household patterns are in evidence, sug-gesting the limits of assuming that level of developmentand urbanization alone can predict household structure.Egypt and Syria are also of particular interest, becausethese are the two countries for which some, if limited,historical data are available.

As can be seen in Table 2, while in no country ex-tended family household are the norm, the countrywith the largest percent of extended family householdsis Yemen, which, as noted above, remains the mostrural and poorest of the four countries being studied.At the other end of the spectrum is Lebanon, which isthe most urbanized and has both the highest level ofper capita income and literacy rate. In Yemen about athird of all households contain three generations, witha small portion of those containing four generations.

Table 1Human Development Statistics.

HDI Country GDP percapita

Human povertyindex

Adult illiteracyrate

Female adultliteracy rate

Women's ageof marriage

Urban shareof thepopulation

Total fertilityrate

Youth maleunemp

Female laborforce partic

(PPP US$) (HPI-1) value(%)

(% aged 15and above)

(% aged 15and above) (%)

(births perwoman)

2007 2007 1999–2007 1997–2007 2005 1990 2010 1990–1995 2005–2010 2004

104 Algeria 7740 17.5 24.6 66.4 29.6 52.1 66.5 4.1 2.4 43 35.739 Bahrain 29,723 8 11.2 86.4 25.9 88.1 88.6 3.4 2.3 17123 Egypt 5349 23.4 33.6 57.8 23.6 43.5 42.8 3.9 2.9 21 24.588 Iran (Islamic Republic of) 10,955 12.8 17.7 77.2 22.1 56.3 69.5 4 1.8 20 31.6

Iraq 19.4 25.9 64.2 24.8 69.7 66.4 5.8 4.1 14.396 Jordan 4901 6.6 8.9 87 25.9 72.2 78.5 5.1 3.1 28 23.131 Kuwait 47,812 5.5 93.1 25.1 98 98.4 3.2 2.2 1683 Lebanon 10,109 7.6 10.4 86 83.1 87.2 3 1.9 24 22.655 Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 14,364 13.4 13.2 78.4 29.2 75.7 77.9 4.1 2.7 25.6130 Morocco 4108 31.1 44.4 43.2 26.4 48.4 56.7 3.7 2.4 17 28.9110 Occupied Palestinian Territories 6 6.2 90.3 22.9 67.9 72.1 6.5 5.1 39 14.256 Oman 22,816 14.7 15.6 77.5 21.7 66.1 71.7 6.3 3.133 Qatar 74,882 5 6.9 90.4 25.8 92.2 95.8 4.1 2.4 8150 Sudan 2086 34 39.1 51.8 22.7 26.6 45.2 5.8 4.2107 Syrian Arab Republic 4511 12.6 16.9 76.5 48.9 54.9 4.9 3.3 16 20.598 Tunisia 7520 15.6 22.3 69 29.2 57.9 67.3 3.1 1.9 31 26.779 Turkey 12,955 8.3 11.3 81.3 23.0 59.2 69.6 2.9 2.1 1935 United Arab Emirates 54,626 7.7 10 91.5 23.1 79.1 78 3.9 1.9 6140 Yemen 2335 35.7 41.1 40.5 21.7 20.9 31.8 7.7 5.3 21 18.9

Source: UNDP (2009), except Women's age of marriage, Gapminder, (nd), Youth male unemployment, Assaad and Roudi-Fahimi (2007), and Female labor force part World Bank Gender stats (nd).

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Table 2General statistics on household structure.

Country Year Sex ofhead

1 to 2generationsingle head

1 to 2generationseparated

1 to 2generationdivorcedhead

1 to 2generationwidowedhead

Marriednuclearfamily

Three a

generationsFour plus a

generationsTotal F HH as

percentof total

Yemen 1998 F HH Count 2332 62,900 8643 50,728 5085 36,140 1553 167,381 7.6%F HH Percent 1.4% 37.6% 5.2% 30.3% 3.0% 21.6% .9% 100.0%M HH Count 21,462 21,268 11,014 17,094 1,276,199 666,849 25,408 2,039,294M HH Percent 1.1% 1.0% .5% .8% 62.6% 32.7% 1.2% 100.0%% extend 31.9%

Yemen 2006 F HH Count 6484 70,820 8943 54,605 7469 53,810 1998 204,129 7.6%F HH percent 3.2% 34.7% 4.4% 26.8% 3.7% 26.4% 1.0% 100.0%M HH count 19,590 18,104 5826 13,171 1,498,093 870,975 40,568 2,466,327M HH percent .8% .7% .2% .5% 60.7% 35.3% 1.6% 100.0%% extend 34.6%

Egypt 2000 F HH count 1787 890 233 2977 37 1240 10 7174 15.1%F HH percent 24.9% 12.4% 3.2% 41.5% 0.5% 17.3% 0.1% 100.0%M HH count 4516 119 109 498 29,379 5632 69 40,322M HH percent 11.2% .3% .3% 1.3% 69.7% 14.8% .2% 100.0%% extend 14.5%

Egypt 2009 F HH count 178 1477 335 4220 16 1534 21 7781 16.6%F HH percent 2.3% 19.0% 4.3% 54.2% .2% 19.7% .3% 100.0%M HH count 389 110 118 594 31,720 6028 109 39,068M HH percent 1.0% .3% .3% 1.5% 81.2% 15.4% .3% 100.0%% extend 16.1%

Syria 1996 F HH count 111 480 52 1189 85 616 7 2540 8.8%F HH percent 4.4% 18.9% 2.0% 46.8% 3.3% 24.3% .3% 100.0%M HH count 406 55 42 156 20,440 5026 124 26,249M HH percent 1.5% .2% .2% .6% 77.9% 19.1% .5% 100.0%% extend 19.6%

Syria 2007 F HH count 49 173 22 589 6 215 3 1057 8.8%F HH percent 4.6% 16.4% 2.1% 55.7% .6% 20.3% .3% 100.0%M HH count 87 28 14 98 9497 1212 16 10,952M HH percent .8% .3% .1% .9% 86.7% 11.1% .1% 100.0%% extend 11.9%

Lebanon 2005 F HH count 239 35 71 1253 62 132 1 1793 14.0%F HH percent 13.3% 2.0% 4.0% 69.9% 3.5% 7.4% 0.1% 100.0%M HH count 535 17 48 212 9676 527 2 11,017M HH percent 4.9% 0.2% 0.4% 1.9% 87.8% 4.8% 0.0% 100.0%% extend 5.2%

Source: HIES: author's calculations.a Three or more generation households include divorced, married and widowed heads.

408 J.C. Olmsted / History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

Most extended family households are three generationmale headed households, but about 5% are female head-ed. In Lebanon by contrast only 5% of all householdsinclude three or more generations, and a minute portionof those are larger than three generations. Extendedfamily structures are more common among femaleheaded households (7.4% of female headed householdsare three generation, while only 4.8% of male headedhouseholds are) in Lebanon, which reflects the factthat women tend to outlive men, so a number of extend-ed family structures include a widowed mother with herchildren and grandchildren.

Egypt and Syria are somewhere in between Lebanonand Yemen in terms of extended family household

rates, with Egypt having a rate of about 15% and verylittle change during the 10 year period (or even in thepast 20 years, since the 1995 data reported by Khedrand el Zeini (2003) suggest a similar pattern), whileSyria is the only country where there appears to be afairly sharp decline in the percent of extended familyhouseholds, with a drop from 20 to 12% between1996 and 2007. Yemen and Egypt by contrast show asmall rise over time, although the change is so small itmost likely is an artifact of the data.

Egypt has the highest proportion of female headedhouseholds. In 2009 that number was estimated as16.6%. The majority of female headed households arewidows. Most of the remaining households are either

409J.C. Olmsted / History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

extended families with a female (generally widowed)head (54%) or households where the husband is a mi-grant (19%). Divorced and never married womenmake up considerably smaller proportions of femaleheaded households.

The country with the next largest percent of femaleheaded households is Lebanon, at 14%, with an evenlarger proportion of female headed households beingwidowed women in households with two or fewer gen-erations. Syria has the third highest rate of female head-ship, at 9%. The distribution in Syria looks very similarto that in Egypt and Lebanon, with most female headsbeing widows, and with equal portions of the remainderbeing extended family or male migrant households.Apart from a small rise in the percent of widowedhouseholds and a small drop in the percent of femaleheaded households that are of the extended familytype there appears to be very little change over the10 year period in terms of the types of female headedhouseholds in Syria.

Yemen is the country with the lowest rate of femaleheadship, and female headed households where the hus-band has migrated are far more common in the case ofYemen than the other countries. Since male migrationis generally a temporary phenomenon, this suggeststhat the more permanent type of female headship thatmay be of particular concern to policy makers worriedabout the possibility of a feminization of poverty is rel-atively rare in Yemen. But it may also be the case thatthe percent of female headed households is underesti-mated, particularly in Yemen. Cultural norms (both ofthe respondent and the interviewer) may in some caseslead to, if an adult male is present in a household, thatperson being identified as the head of household. Ifthis norm remains stronger in a country such asYemen, that might in part explain the different resultsbeing observed in Yemen, although it is also possiblethat rather than a reporting issue, this really does reflectthe fact that Yemen remains a more traditional society,compared to the other three countries to which it isbeing compared. It should also be noted though thatwhile concerns have been raised about the underreport-ing of female headship, according to the HIES data, be-tween a third and two thirds of female headedhouseholds (depending on the country and the year) inall four countries also report having an adult male pre-sent, suggesting that fears that social norms may pre-clude individuals from naming a female head in caseswhere an adult male is present may be overstated.

Still, another type of underreporting is likely also oc-curring, in the case where either a husband has abandoneda wife and she does not want to admit to that fact, or

where the husband is unable or unwilling to support thefamily, due to drug addiction or other social problems, aphenomenon that in particular has been remarked onin the case of Iran (see for example Bahramitash andEsfahani (2011)), but likely is also occurring else-where as well. For example in Yemen qat consumptionmay contribute to low levels of labour productivity(Nugent, 2003), which could in turn mean that womencannot rely on their husbands for economic support,even though the men are titularly the household heads.

Another pattern of note in these data is the differencein the proportion of households headed by divorced in-dividuals, both across countries and by sex. In all coun-tries a higher proportion of female headed householdsare headed by divorced women, than is the caseamong men. This is in part due to the fact that the num-ber of female headed households is generally muchsmaller than the male headed ones, and therefore di-vorced households make up a large proportion of fe-male headed households. But it is also true that in allcases except the earlier data for Yemen (1998) the rawnumber of divorced households headed by womenwas higher than the number headed by men. This canbe explained by the fact that divorced Arab men arefar more likely than women to remarry. In fact an exam-ination of the general statistics suggests that the numberof divorced women is far higher than the number of di-vorced men not only in terms of household headship,but also in terms of the overall population, in all fourcountries. For example, in Lebanon, 72% of all di-vorced individuals are female. Since divorce, except inthe case of polygynous men, who are a tiny minorityin these four countries, results in the addition of both amale and a female to the ranks of the divorced, this find-ing provides strong statistical evidence to support theassertion that men are far more likely to remarry thanwomen.

Also not surprising is the fact that the vast majorityof widows who head households are female. This isdue to multiple reasons: women tend to marry menwho are older than them and they also tend to live lon-ger. For this reason, women are far more likely to out-live their spouses. In addition, widowed men, likedivorced men, are more likely to remarry than widowedwomen are. Thus in Lebanon for example amongwidows, 86.5% are women.

Although they only represent a small portion of thetotal number of households, also of interest are thosethat consist of either a single head and/or a one personhousehold, because trends in this category may be par-ticularly suggestive of changes in household formationthat may be occurring, as well as differences across

2 It is not impossible for a portion of the one person households toconsist of married individuals, for a number of reasons. For example,because in Islam marriage is a two part process, involving first thesigning of the marriage documents and then the actual consummationof the marriage, which generally occurs when cohabitation begins, it ispossible that individuals who have signed their marriage documents,but are not yet cohabitating identify themselves as married. In addi-tion, some of these one person households may be ones where a cou-ple recently married, and where one spouse has migrated for work oreducational reasons and therefore was not in residence when the sur-vey was conducted. But whereas in the other countries the numberof one person married households was quite small (5 to 8%), in thecase of Yemen 20% of all households fit that category, so it is not clearif this is a coding error or a real phenomenon.

410 J.C. Olmsted / History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

countries and by sex. Single headed households consistof never married individuals leading households. In allfour countries, about half of all single headed house-holds were also one person households. Also of interestis to examine one person households, which consist pri-marily of individuals who were never married or for-merly married, and who presently live alone.Examining the age breakdown of this group is of inter-est for two reasons. First, a number of one personhouseholds consist of elderly individuals who havenever married and thus are very unlikely to have chil-dren of their own (out of wedlock child birth is highlytaboo and therefore very rare in Arab societies). Thereis considerable evidence that this group is not onlygrowing in size (Rashad and Osman, 2003), but mayalso be particularly economically vulnerable, in socie-ties where the primary form of old age support is chil-dren (Olmsted, 2005a). The HIES data confirm thatthe number of never married women is growing andthat this group is making up a growing proportion ofthe one person households. In Yemen for example thepercent of never married women grew from being 3 to13% of all female headed one person households overthe ten year period being examined. In Syria the changewas less stark but still noticeable, with the proportion ofnever married one person female households risingfrom 13 to 16%. Since 94% of the Syrian women livingalone are over the age of 40, it is likely these womenwill never marry and will continue living alone through-out their lives.

Another group of one person households consists ofwidowed and divorced individuals who either did nothave children, or who no longer live with their children.But perhaps most importantly in terms of understandinghow household formation patterns are changing, is toexamine another group, consisting of young peoplewho are living alone. An examination of the Lebanesedata is of particular interest, since a far larger proportionof households in Lebanon (6% as opposed to 1% on av-erage in the remaining countries) consist of a singleheads. Similarly the proportion of one person house-holds is larger in Lebanon (6% versus 5% in Egyptand only 2% in Yemen and Syria). For countries suchas Egypt, these numbers are quite low in comparisonwith historical data (recall that in Cairo in 1848 consid-erably more solo household were observed) but also incomparison for example to the US where in 2000 25%of household consisted of one person living alone (USCensus, 2000). In addition, youth make up a far largerproportion of all one person households in Lebanon.While in Egypt only 7% to 10% (depending on theyear) of all one person households are aged 30 or less,

in Lebanon 22% fit that category. Also of interest isthe fact that while they remain a minority, a numberof single women below the age of 30 appear to be livingalone, not only in Lebanon, but also in Egypt andYemen. In fact, while the percent of one person house-holds run by youth is lower in Egypt, the proportion ofthose that are female is higher, at 33% (compared to10% in Lebanon.) In the case of Yemen there may besome coding problems, since 20% of those identifiedas one person households are also coded as married.2

so these results may not be reliable. But even inYemen, which in other ways appears very conservative,17% of one person households are identified as having ahead below the age of 30, with about a third of thosebeing women. Thus Yemen looks in some ways moresimilar to Egypt, with its relatively large proportion ofyoung females living alone, while in other ways itlooks more similar to Syria in the sense that only asmall percent of households contain only one person.While one person households were not uncommon his-torically, Fargues (2003a) in particular notes that youngwomen never appeared as household heads in the 1848Cairo data. More generally, historically it has been veryhard for young women to set up their own households,so the fact that in Egypt and Lebanon, and possiblyeven in Yemen, some women appear to be doing so ata fairly young age suggests a fairly drastic shift in socialnorms.

In Syria by contrast it remains almost unheard of foryoung unmarried women to set up their own house-holds, suggesting that despite higher levels of literacyand lower rates of poverty than Egypt, gender normsin Syria, at least in terms of household formation, aremore conservative than elsewhere in the Arab world.About 10% of one person households (13 in total)were below the age of 30 and all but one was a man.And yet, in Syria it is also the case that the majorityof one person households do consist of women. Almostall of these women though are older widowed women.

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Widowed women make up 50% of all one personhouseholds, with never married men being the secondlargest category at 17%. Even divorced women are un-likely to live by themselves in Syria. But the other inter-esting finding is that a number of older Syrian womenwho never married do live alone. In fact, 16% of allwomen (and 10% of all individuals) living alone arewomen over the age of 30 who never married.

Similar trends can be seen in the other countries in thestudy as well. In Egypt 74% of all one person house-holds are women, of whom 85% are widows. Widowedmen and single men by contrast, make up less than 10%(each) of the total number of one person households,while never married women make up of 6% of all femaleone person households, and 5% of all one person house-holds. In Lebanon 55% of all one person households arewomen, and among women, 23% are never married,while 71% of widowed. By contrast among men 70%of all one person households consist of never marriedmen. Thus, widowed women, followed by never marriedmen, and then never married women, make up the threelargest categories of one person households.

These data shed light both on the ways that age andgender norms have historically interacted in the contextof Arab societies, as well as hinting to changes that areoccurring in terms of gender norm expectations. Patriar-chal family structures, while defining women as depen-dents, have also given considerable power to olderwomen. So while it is very unusual to observe youngwomen as household heads, even in the case wherethey are divorced and widowed, since the cultural ex-pectation is for them to rejoin their parents' household,older women are far more likely to be identified ashousehold heads, even in cases where an adult male ispresent in the household.

The data, particularly for Lebanon and Egypt, alsosuggest that youth are increasingly having the chanceto set up their own households. While this is far morecommon among men, with the exception of Syria, it ap-pears to be an increasing option for women as well, sug-gesting that some easing of social norms that proscribeclose supervision of youth and particularly of youngfemales.

The finding that youth are increasingly setting uptheir own households is in some ways surprising, partic-ularly in light of a growing literature that argues thateconomic conditions have precluded youth from transi-tioning to adulthood. Singerman (2007) has described aperiod of ‘waithood,’ where Arab youth, because ofhigh unemployment and housing shortages, are unableto marry and start their own families. HIES data thoughsuggest that some youth are striking out on their own,

not only by marrying and setting up their own house-holds, but also by establishing households independent-ly even in the absence of marriage. It may be true that ifeconomic conditions were more conducive, we wouldsee an even larger portion of youth setting up theirown households, so perhaps the problem of ‘waithood’means that the transition that often accompanies urban-ization and modernization has been slowed by high un-employment. Still, despite the lack of conduciveeconomic conditions, norms do appear to be changing,not only in terms of youth behaviour, but particularlyin terms of young women.

Another interesting question worth exploring relatesto the issue of female labour force participation. Whilethere has been some speculation that female headshipis rising in the region, as Table 3 illustrates, the HIESdata do not suggest this is the case. In tandem withthis assertion, it has also been argued that female em-ployment rates have risen, as pressure has been put onwomen to increase their economic contribution. Againthough it is not clear whether rising female participationrates are linked to economic hardship or other factors.

In fact, one phenomenon worthy of note is that al-though women head between 8 and 20% of all house-holds, even among women household heads, labourforce participation remains quite low. Regression analysissuggests that being a female head increases the chances ofbeing a labor market participant in all four countries, butonly in Egypt is the difference between heads and non-heads large and statistically significant. While the overalllabour force participation rate among all adult women inEgypt in 2005 was 32% (a figure that is considerablyhigher than the official figures reported by the WorldBank, which was 24.5% for 2004), the participation rateamong female heads of households was 50% amongnon-poor households and 57% among poor ones. By con-trast, among male headed households the labour partici-pation rate of the male head was 95%.

Egypt is the case where female heads are the most en-gaged in the labour market. In Lebanon female headshave a participation rate of only 20%, which is actuallylower than the overall female labour force participationrate of 23%. Similarly, among female heads in Syria,labor force participation is around 20%, which is similarto the overall rate of participation for women. Becausethey are unlikely to work themselves, many femaleheaded households depend on income that comes fromnon-household members, particularly from their malerelatives, suggesting both the economic vulnerabilityof these women/households, but also that even whenmale kin are living elsewhere, they still may feel a re-sponsibility to support their female relatives.

Table 3Female headed households.

Source United Nations World Bank HIES HIES HIES HIES HIES World Bank HIES

Female headedhouseholds

Female headedhouseholds

Never marriedfemale heads

Divorcedfemale heads

Widowedfemale heads

Other Female labor forcepart all women

labor force partfemale heads

Year 1980s Lateryear

Later year

Algeria 11 35.7Egypt 13 12.3 17 2.3 4.3 54 39.4 24.5/32 50Iran 6 31.6Iraq 10.8 11 73 27 14.3Jordan 10 11.5 23.1Lebanon 14 13.3 4.5 77 5.2 22.6 20Libya 25.6Morocco 15 17.1 28.9Palestine 7.3 14.2Syria 9 4.6 2.1 47 46.3 20.5 20Tunisia 11 26.7Turkey 10Yemen 8 3.2 4.4 30 62.4 18.9/70

Source: HIES author’s calculations, UNDP data as cited in Olmsted (2005b) and World Bank Gender stats (nd).Where two figures are given these represent a lower and upper range for female labor force participation.Other includes both separated and married women who are heads of households (e.g. migration.)

3 Ten years may be too short to observe such changes, but for theUS between 1990 and 2000 a number of changes in the compositionof household structure were observed, indicating that, if changes arein fact occurring, ten years is sufficient time for those to become vis-ible in the data (US Census, 2000).

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Another important finding, which illustrates howvulnerable female household heads are is that even ifthey do work, they are less likely to be working forwages. Among poor female household heads in Egypt,only about 10% work for wages, with the majority in-stead relying on self-employment income. Amongnon-poor women the rate of working for wages ishigher (about 20%) but even among these women,self-employment is the norm. In Syria wage employ-ment is also elusive for poor female household heads,but is more common among non-poor women. Thus fe-male headed households are vulnerable either becausethey rely primarily on self-employment income, whichis likely to be volatile and indicates a lack of access toretirement and other types of benefits that generally ac-company wage employment, or, despite being definedas ‘heads’ of households, they still rely on male kinfor their economic well-being.

The finding that so many female headed householdsare dependent on non-resident males for their primaryincome source is noteworthy for two reasons. First itpoints to the vulnerability of these households, whichmust depend on contributions from non-resident familymembers. In addition, it is of interest because it raisesthe question, what, if anything, can changes in house-hold structure tell us about changes in family relation-ships? Yount and Rashad (2008) argue that rather thanassuming that all countries are following the same tra-jectory in terms of changes in household structure that

were observed with the increase in urbanization and‘modernization’ in the West, it is worth speculatingabout whether there may be some similarities, but alsosome differences in how that transition takes place. Inthe Arab world, my data suggest, there does seem tobe a slow shift towards nuclear households. This shiftthough shows up more when looking at differing coun-tries (e.g. Yemen versus Lebanon) rather than in look-ing at the same countries over a ten year period. Itappears that while a transition in household structuresoccurred in the 1970s and 1980s, changes in the con-temporary period have been more subtle.3

Also worth noting is that the shift from extended tonuclear households does not necessarily imply an endto support being provided even when family membersno longer co-reside. Particularly in the case of femaleheaded households there appears to be a continued reli-ance on male kin for economic support, although thosekin members do not live in the same household.

And while the proportion of nuclear to extendedhouseholds appears unchanged, there is evidence thatthe number of young people setting up their own house-holds, even before marriage, is growing, which could be

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an indication both of changing norms and more changesin household structure in the near future. It is also possi-ble that the transition to more nuclear based householdshas been stalled precisely because of the problem ofyouth unemployment, so that if the economic situationin the region were more robust we would have seenmore of a shift towards nuclear, as well as one personhouseholds.

5. Conclusion

Building off of earlier work by Hanjal and de Moorand van Zanden, I argue that an examination of the com-plex ways that norms and economic conditions interactto shape household outcomes is necessary to gain a bet-ter understanding of past and current household forma-tion trends in the Arab world. My research suggests anumber of interesting findings. First, the examinationof historic data, as well as a number of contemporaryhousehold surveys in four Arab communities suggeststhat it is difficult to generalize about Arab household for-mation across time and space. On the one hand, a com-parison of contemporary data for Lebanon and Yemensuggests that increased income levels, urbanization andrising literacy rates are linked to declines in the percentof extended family households and an increased accep-tance of young unmarried men and women setting upseparate households. But given that historic data forLebanon and Yemen are not available, it's not entirelyclear whether in the earlier period these two communi-ties would have looked more similar. Certainly as farback as the 1800s, urban households in Cairo werequite small, while in Damascus they were considerablylarger. Also noteworthy is that contemporary Egypt inmany ways looks astonishingly similar to Cairo in themid 1800s, while contemporary Syria looks quite differ-ent from historic patterns in Damascus. It is likely thatwhile descriptive statistics for Egypt in the historic andcontemporary period look similar, the underlying expla-nations for these trends are quite different.

There is no doubt that very different economic, so-cial and legal structures existed for example in theCairo of the 1800s and the present day. One importantdifference that could be closely linked to economic con-ditions was the role mortality played in the earlier peri-od. Another noteworthy difference involves the agemake-up and marital status of one person households,which is illustrative of a shift in norms. Whatever thereasons why, it is noteworthy that at least in urbanEgypt, nuclear families appear to have been the normfor quite some time, and the percent of female headed

households also seems surprisingly stable, at around16%.

In Syria, by contrast, we see quite a bit of changewhen it comes to household patterns. In comparison tothe early 20th century, where large, extended familyhouseholds were the norm, even in urban areas, the con-temporary data suggest that a shift has been occurring,particularly in the past twenty years, in terms of a de-cline in the prevalence of extended family households.

The data also suggest that while historically Egyptand Syria (or at least Cairo and Damascus) lookedvery different in terms of household structure, despiteostensibly similar legal frameworks, in the contempo-rary period they look more similar, though there arestill some noteworthy differences, particularly in termsof gender norms and youth behavior. Syria stands outas being more conservative than surrounding Arabcountries, in terms of allowing youth, and particularlyyoung females, to set up their own households. By con-trast, in Lebanon, Egypt and even Yemen, a shift innorms appears to be occurring, which is allowing notonly young men, but also young women more freedomto set up their own households. The data from Syria andEgypt also suggest that even in cases where similar eco-nomic conditions prevail, social factors may lead to dif-fering outcomes.

Also worth noting is that changes are occurring de-spite high levels of youth unemployment, which sug-gests that if economic conditions were better, an evenmore dramatic change in household structure mighthave been observed. In fact, the finding that youth arelaunching out on their own, despite adverse economicconditions, suggests that sometimes, even in the ab-sence of economically conducive conditions, socialnorms may shift.

Other findings include the fact that while there hasbeen speculation that rates of female headship are rising,the data do not suggest that this is the case. What is alsostriking is that many female household heads are not la-bour market participants, and often rely on income fromnon-household members. Not only does this suggest oneof the limits of using the household as the unit of analy-sis, since major income sources may in some cases comefrom non-household members, but it also raises ques-tions about the vulnerability of these women, as wellas other members of their households, who may appearto be independent decision makers due to their statusas household heads, but who may be relying heavilyon non-household members for support.

While the data reveal some interesting patterns, farmore work still needs to be done on the question ofArab households and families. It remains unclear why

414 J.C. Olmsted / History of the Family 16 (2011) 401–415

such diverse household patterns emerged in variousparts of the Ottoman empire, in a period where thelegal structure was being codified. More archival analy-sis that can provide insight into historic trends would behelpful, although data constraints may limit such work.

Hajnal puts a lot of emphasis on age of marriage inmaking his argument concerning the emergence ofsmall households in Europe as early as the 17th century.An analysis of women's age of marriage is of interestfor the Arab region in particular, since there has beena rapid increase in this number in recent years, as wellas there being wide variations in patterns across com-munities. By far the highest average age of marriage isobserved in the North African countries of Algeria,Libya and Tunisia, where the average age of marriageis around 29 and far above the world average of 25.At the other end of the spectrum are Iran (a non ArabMiddle Eastern country), Oman and Yemen. It is be-yond the scope of this paper to examine in depth theway age of marriage patterns may be linked to norms,household structures and economic conditions, andthus a valuable follow-up question would be to examinethese trends, particularly in the context of North Africa,where women's average age of marriage is remarkablyhigh. The work of Sarah Carmichael (2011–this issue)begins to address the question of what factors shapethe age of first marriage in the Arab world and else-where. Similar to this study, she finds that the role of re-ligion is complex. While in the past for example, Islamwas associated with relatively low ages of first mar-riage, in the contemporary period it is having the oppo-site effect.

A related issue worth exploring further is the ques-tion of why the region is seeing a rise in the percentof women who are not marrying. Is this a matter ofchoice on the part of women, and linked to economicconditions that have improved women's ability to optout of the marriage contract, or a function of shifting pa-rental expectations. Or alternatively, is it due to a lackof suitable partners, given women's rapidly rising edu-cational attainment and male out-migration. Likely allthree factors are playing a role, but the relevant impor-tance of each is worth exploring further. More general-ly, I would argue that scholars interested in householdformation need to tease out more clearly the questionof how much changes being observed in marriagetrends, household patterns, etc. are a matter of individu-al choice and desirable, and how much trends are afunction of structural factors and may be counter to in-dividuals' hopes. I have raised such questions when itcome to the question of why increasing cohorts ofArab women appear to be remaining unmarried, but

similar questions can also be raised around the questionof household make-up. A number of authors have ar-gued that extended households would have been per-ceived as an ideal in Ottoman communities in the1800s, but this begs the point—whose ideal was repre-sented by this reality. In the contemporary period, howmuch do economic conditions shape current decisionsof youth to either stay with family or move out ontheir own and whose choice is reflected in theseoutcomes?

These, as well as a number of other questions, stillneed to be addressed in order to gain a better understand-ing of the future of household patterns in the Arab world.The question of how and why marriage patterns are shift-ing, and the complex ways that social norms, political andeconomic factors are intertwined is a particularly salientone in the Arab world, where high youth unemploymenthas been identified as not only a serious economic, butalso a political challenge, as evidenced by the monumen-tal political changes that have been taking place in 2010and 2011, throughout the region.

Acknowledgments

This paper is part of the Poverty, Employment andSocial Protection in Arab States project and is beingfunded by the United Nations Development Program,Bureau for Development Policies (UNDP—BDP). Theviews herein are those of the author and do not representthe official position of UNDP. Many thanks to Heba El-Laithy, who carried out the statistical analysis for thisproject. Thanks also to Diana Alarcon and ClaudiaVinay at UNDP for their support. An earlier draft ofthis paper was presented at the Marriage Patterns,Household Formation and Economic Developmentworkshop in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in October of2011. Thanks to Sarah Carmichael for encouraging meto apply to the workshop and to Tine de Moor, as wellas the other workshop participants, who provided in-valuable input. Thanks also to Tim Parker, for help heprovided with SPSS.

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