How Does HIV/AIDS Affect Fertility? Evidence from Malawi

• The paper analyses how communal HIV/AIDS in rural Malawi impacts on fertility. Ordered probit models are estimated using individual data on actual fertility and the ideal number of children from the 2004 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey. The survey includes tests of HIV status, making it possible to distinguish between behavioural and physiological effects. The main indicator of communal HIV/AIDS is district prime-age mortality rates, obtained from the 1998 Population Census. The paper first address the question of the overall behavioural fertility response due to the epidemic, and then tests for differences in responses due to genderspecific district mortality and HIV rates, knowledge about mother-to-child HIV transmission, and age. The main findings are: HIV/AIDS has a negative but small impact on fertility; responses differ depending on genderspecific district mortality and HIV rates, actual fertility and women’s ideal number of children are more negatively affected by HIV/AIDS among women than among men; and a woman’s knowledge about mother-tochild transmission of HIV and age are important determinants of her fertility response to the disease.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

fertility

gender

HIV prevalence

mortality

prime-age adult mortality

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

rap (subject category)