Abstract: This paper explores the link between the gender of a household head and food security in rural Kenya. The results show that the food security gap between male-headed households (MHHs) and female-headed households (FHHs) is explained by their differences in observable and unobservable characteristics. FHHs’ food security status would have been higher than it is now if the returns (coefficients) on their observed characteristics had been the same as the returns on the MHHs’ characteristics.

Recent economic growth in Tanzania has not been matched by a corresponding reduction in poverty when compared with similar episode of growth in countries such as Uganda, Ghana, etc. This has raised heated debate, whereby some analysts argue that problem lies on the GDP is compiled, and other on the validity of Household Budget Survey (HBS) data. This paper contributes to that debate by  analyzing the distribution of upper tail observation using he Generalized Pareto Distributions show that HBS 2007 is characterized by extreme values of per capita expenditure when compares to 2001.