Although women these days are getting better concern the socio-economic political spheres of the country, they still are lagging behind in all aspects and constitute the higher proportion of people living in absolute poverty. It has also been found in different studies that, there is a higher proportion of poor women in the urban areas. National reports show that, the number of female-headed households (FHH) under absolute poverty is higher than male-headed ones in urban Ethiopia.

The findings of the study made it clear that the prevalence of poverty in FHHs is high (73%) with a poverty gap of 20%. In addition to the lack of income, (91.4%) earning less than Birr 500 a month, they are living in danger of income insecurity. The incidence of poverty is higher among households headed by migrants.

Lack of education and large family size are found to be among the contributing factors to the higher incidence of poverty in FHHs; the majority of which lacked decent housing and basic facilities such as toilet and water taps; services like education, health and credit services. It also found in this study that, poverty, or the lack of income, caused female-headed families to avoid participation of highly valued local institutions.

Although the majority (76.3%) hopes to escape poverty, the rest lost hope for such reasons as old age, poor health, and a lack of job opportunities among other things. Some of the possible interventions recommended to enable FHHs to escape poverty are giving special attention to women and FHHs in poverty reduction programs and strategies; helping them achieve more secure income sources; providing them with market place and entrepreneurial skills; checking the migration of women from origins; and giving female-headed families better access to education, health and credit services.

(As provided by author)