Education, HIV Status and Risky Sexual Behavior: How Much Does the Stage of the HIV Epidemic Matter?

Abstract

for helpful comments. We thank participants at the College of Medicine in Blantyre, the XXVI IUSSP International Population Conference (Marrakech) for very helpful comments and discussions. Daniela Iorio acknowledges financial support from the Barcelona GSE and the government of Catalonia. Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis thanks the Weidenbaum Center at the Washington University in St. Louis for financial support. We also thank Alannah Glickman, Minho Kim, and Borek Vasicek for excellent research assistance. 4 Albeit not using nationally representative data, a set of papers describes changes in sexual behavior across education groups over time or in response to a specific policy-driven change in the environment (e.g., Asiimwe

Education, HIV, and Early Fertility: Experimental Evidence from Kenya

“…We assume that the utility of having a child as a teenager is never, in itself, worth the opportunity cost of pregnancy: B i − θ j y(e) is negative for i = m, c. Finally let the cost of education be given by C(e) = eγ. 25 For simplicity in the analysis of the model, we focus on invidual variations in θ (returns to education). Girls could of course differ in other ways, including in an intrinsic preference in one kind of sexual activity over the other.…”

“…Indeed, the evidence of differential hazard rates of childbearing post-subsidy (discussed in section 4.1) is consistent with this mechanism operating. 25 We assume that the cost of education is sunk at the beginning of the year but all our results go through if we remove this assumption.…”

Does schooling protect sexual health? The association between three measures of education and STIs among adolescents in Malawi

“…Increases in grade attainment and schooling duration have been linked to changes in the HIV epidemic. Multiple studies have examined educational gradients in HIV prevalence among adults and how they have shifted over time (de Walque et al 2005;Fortson 2008;Hargreaves and Howe 2010;Iorio and Santaeulalia-Llopis 2016). Studies have also investigated whether there is an association between adolescent school participation and both HIV and herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection (see, e.g., Doyle et al 2013;Santelli et al 2015;Mee et al 2018).…”

Education, HIV, and Early Fertility: Experimental Evidence from Kenya

“…De Walque (2007) finds that, in Uganda, the more educated were more likely to change their behavior in response to the national HIV risk information campaign than those with less education. Iorio and Santaeulalia-Llopis (2011) use DHS data from 18 countries to test whether the relationship between education and HIV status varies as the HIV epidemic progresses, and find evidence of nonstationarity, with the relationship being positive at both the early and very late stages of the epidemic, and negative at intermediate stages. Outside of the HIV literature, Jensen and Lleras-Muney (2012) finds that a randomized intervention that increased schooling among men in the Dominican Republic reduced risky behavior (such as heavy drinking and smoking), mainly by changing subjects’ resources and peers.…”