Social ties and food insecurity in woman-headed households

Abstract

Food insecurity is a global concern, as set in the Sustainable Development Goal 2. Previous research has focused on the demographics and socioeconomic determinants of food insecurity, while little attention has been paid to the role of social ties. Using a national representative survey of Chile, that includes a questionnaire to measure prevalence of food insecurity and 11 social ties, we estimate the prevalence of four groups using a sample of 70,677 households. Then, we focus on the sub-sample of 29,203 woman-headed households, who experience the largest food insecurity prevalence. We use a descriptive analysis, followed by a principal component analysis to aggregate 11 social ties in fewer components to assess the associations between social ties and food insecurity and to identify the ties with stronger impact. The results show that woman-headed households, without a partner, have a prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity of 32.8%, 30.9%, 24.7%, after none, one and two social ties, respectively. This decreasing trend is also observed in woman-headed households with partners. We also found that the 11 social ties studied are highly correlated among them; they can be explained by two indexes—economic and education components. In particular, we found that economic and educational social ties are associated to a larger effect on food insecurity prevalence. This study provides evidence for policy-makers regarding investment on social ties to tackle food insecurity.