Unpaid HIV/AIDS Care, Gender and Poverty: Exploring the Links

Olagoke Akintola

Chapter 5 in Unpaid Work and the Economy, 2010, pp 112-139 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Traditionally, women are known worldwide to be the main care providers in families and households, devoting much of their time to carrying out domestic work, which includes household maintenance, shopping and care of children and the sick, without being remunerated. Much of the value of these activities has gone unrecognized. However, the domestic work carried out by women in sub-Saharan African countries has recently received greater attention due to the consequences of the AIDS epidemic, which has necessitated the introduction of home-based care on a wide scale. The impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on southern African countries, which have consistently recorded the highest global HIV/AIDS-prevalence rates in the past five years (UNAIDS, 2004), has been particularly severe. As matters stand, the southern African region is currently home to three of the countries with the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the world. Swaziland, with an HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of over 26 per cent, is currently the country with the highest prevalence rate in the world, followed by Botswana with 24 per cent and Lesotho with 23 per cent (UNAIDS, 2008). Although South Africa has the fifth highest prevalence in the region, it has the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the whole world, with about 5.5 million people infected in the region.

Keywords: Unpaid Work; Household Food Security; Joint United Nations Programme; Unpaid Care; Unpaid Caregiver (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1057/9780230250550_5

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