Is Schooling a "Social Vaccine" against HIV for Adolescent Girls? Evidence from Malawi and Uganda

• In Event: 546 - Section on Sociology of Population Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Sociology of Population Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01. Gender, Families and Development

Abstract

Schooling has been proposed to be a “social vaccine” against HIV/AIDS, especially for adolescent girls who are particularly at risk for new infection. While the literature indicates a strong association between schooling and HIV, it has been unable to control for additional factors, such as socio-economic status, that predict both schooling and likelihood of HIV infection. In this paper I deal with the endogeneity of schooling by taking advantage of a natural experiment, the implementation of Universal Primary Education policies in Malawi and Uganda in the mid 1990s. I use data from the most recent Demographic Health Surveys in Malawi (2010) and Uganda (2011) and model the relationship between primary schooling and adult HIV status using an instrumented fuzzy regression discontinuity approach. The results indicate that in Malawi a one year increase in schooling for a girl leads to a 6-7 percent reduction in probability of testing positive for HIV as an adult and in Uganda a one year increase in schooling leads to a 2-4 percent reduction in probability of testing positive for HIV as an adult. In a series of supplementary analyses a number of potential pathways through which such effects may occur are explored. Findings indicate increased exposure to primary school affects overall schooling attainment and effects adolescent sexual behavior to some extent. However primary schooling has no effect on recent (adult) sexual behavior.

Author

• Julia Andrea Behrman, New York University