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

40 Pages Posted: 20 Oct 2009

See all articles by Chinhui Juhn

Chinhui Juhn

University of Houston - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan

University of Maryland - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Koc University, Graduate School of Business

Belgi Turan

TOBB University of Economics and Technology

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

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.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, fertility, economic development

JEL Classification: O12, I12, J13

Suggested Citation

Juhn, Chinhui and Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem and Turan, Belgi, HIV and Fertility in Africa: First Evidence from Population Based Surveys. IZA Discussion Paper No. 4473, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1490475 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1490475

Chinhui Juhn (Contact Author)

University of Houston - Department of Economics ( email )

Houston, TX 77204-5882
United States
713-743-3823 (Phone)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan

University of Maryland - Department of Economics ( email )

College Park, MD 20742
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Koc University, Graduate School of Business ( email )

Rumelifeneri Yolu
34450 Sar?yer
Istanbul, 34450
Turkey

Belgi Turan

TOBB University of Economics and Technology ( email )

Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences
Söğütözü Cad. 43,
Ankara, Cankaya
Turkey

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
54
Abstract Views
702
Rank
482,506
PlumX Metrics