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HIV and Fertility in Africa: First Evidence from Population Based Surveys

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Author Info
Juhn, Chinhui () (University of Houston)
Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem () (University of Houston)
Turan, Belgi () (University of Houston)
Abstract

The historical pattern of the demographic transition suggests that fertility declines follow mortality declines, followed by a rise in human capital accumulation and economic growth. The HIV/AIDS epidemic threatens to reverse this path. A recent paper by Young (2005), however, suggests that similar to the "Black Death" episode in Europe, HIV/AIDS will actually lead to higher growth per capita among the a affected African countries. Not only will population decline, behavioral responses in fertility will reinforce this decline by reducing the willingness to engage in unprotected sex. We utilize recent rounds of the Demographic and Health Surveys that link an individual woman’s fertility outcomes to her HIV status based on testing. The data allows us to distinguish the effect of own positive HIV status on fertility (which may be due to lower fecundity and other physiological reasons) from the behavioral response to higher mortality risk, as measured by the local community HIV prevalence. We show that HIV-infected women have significantly lower fertility. In contrast to Young (2005), however, we find that local community HIV prevalence has no significant effect on non-infected women's fertility.

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 4473.

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Length: 40 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2009
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4473

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Related research
Keywords: HIV/AIDS; fertility; economic development;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
O12 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production
J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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This page was last updated on 2009-12-14.

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