Uncovering the Effect of the HIV Epidemic on Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Malawi

Dick Durevall and Annika Lindskog
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Dick Durevall: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG

No 318, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: In many Sub-Saharan countries the HIV epidemic has spread to over 10% of the working-age population, and is likely to affect economically relevant behaviour. We evaluate the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the reproductive behaviour for women in Malawi, allowing for a heterogeneous response depending on age and prior number of births. HIV/AIDS increases the probability that a young woman would give birth to her first child, while it decreases the probability to give birth of older women or of young women who have already given birth. The resulting change in the distribution of fertility across age groups is likely to be more demographically and economically important than changes in the total number of children a woman gives birth to.

Keywords: AIDS; Demographic Transition; HIV; Fertility; Malawi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J13 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2008-09-16, Revised 2009-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-hea
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Forthcoming in Journal of Population Economics, 2010.

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