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

Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis ()

No ECO2016/09, Economics Working Papers from European University Institute

Abstract: We study the relationship between education and HIV status using nationally representative data from 39 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in Sub-Saharan Africa. First, we construct an innovative algorithm that systematically defines aggregate stages of the HIV epidemic in a comparable manner across time and across space. Second, we exploit the variation in the aggregate HIV stages in the DHS data, and find that the education gradient in HIV shows a U-shaped (positive-zero-positive) pattern over the course of the epidemic. Further, educational disparities in the number of extramarital partners are largely consistent with the evolution of the education gradient in HIV. We propose a simple theoretical model of risky sex choices that accounts for these stylized facts.

Keywords: Education; HIV; Risky sex; Epidemiological stages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 I25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-edu and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/41364/ECO_2016_09.pdf main text

Related works:
Working Paper: Education, HIV Status, and Risky Sexual Behavior: How Much Does the Stage of the HIV Epidemic Matter? (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eui:euiwps:eco2016/09

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Papers from European University Institute Badia Fiesolana, Via dei Roccettini, 9, 50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Cécile Brière ().