Education and HIV/AIDS Prevention: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Western Kenya

Abstract

We report results from a randomized evaluation comparing three school-based HIV/AIDS interventions in Kenya: 1) training teachers in the Kenyan Government's HIV/AIDS-education curriculum; 2) encouraging students to debate the role of condoms and to write essays on how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS; and 3) reducing the cost of education. Our primary measure of the effectiveness of these interventions is teenage childbearing, which is associated with unprotected sex. We also collected measures of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior regarding HIV/AIDS. After two years, girls in schools where teachers had been trained were more likely to be married in the event of a pregnancy. The program had little other impact on students' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior, or on the incidence of teen childbearing. The condom debates and essays increased practical knowledge and self-reported use of condoms without increasing self-reported sexual activity. Reducing the cost of education by paying for school uniforms reduced dropout rates, teen marriage, and childbearing.

The Experimental Approach to Development Economics

“…We have argued that experiments can be and have been useful for testing theories [see Banerjee (2005) and Duflo et al (2006) for a longer treatment of these issues]. The fact that the basic experimental results (e.g., the mean treatment effect) do not depend on the theory for their identification means that a "clean" test of theory (i.e., a test that does not rely on other theories too) may be possible.…”

“…Other "multiple treatment experiments" include Banerjee et al (2007) (remedial education and computer-assisted learning), Duflo et al (2006) and Dupas (2007) (various HIV-AIDS prevention strategies among adolescents), Banerjee et al (2009) (information and mobilization experiments in primary schools in India), Banerjee et al (2008) (demand and supply factors in improving immunization rates in India), and Gine et al (2008) (two strategies to help smokers quit smoking).…”

Child Labor

“…Several studies document an association between the mitigation of school costs and schooling (for example, Duflo et al 2006), and Foster and Rosenzweig (2004) argue that school construction accompanying the green revolution in India facilitated increased schooling and decreased child labor in both landed and landless households although they do not directly observe a measure of child labor in their data.…”

Long-term Societal Impacts of Conditional Cash Transfers: Bolsa Família a Decade in

“…Young girls will have financial incentives to remain in school, which is more difficult for teen mothers (Baird et al, 2013). Moreover, additional education tends to lead to delayed pregnancy (Duflo, Dupas, Kremer & Sinei, 2006). Results from different CCT's around the world that focus on higher levels of education have all yielded significant declines in the rate of teenage pregnancy for females who are beneficiaries 90 Warby -Long-term Societal Impacts of CCT of the programs due to sexual education, contraception awareness and dispersal, and family planning education.…”