In the absence of HIV testing, how do rural Malawians assess their HIV status? In this paper, we use a unique dataset that includes respondents’ HIV status as well as their subjective likelihood of HIV infection. These data show that many rural Malawians overestimate their likelihood of...

Objective: We studied child survival in Rakai, Uganda where many children are fostered out or orphaned. Methods: Biological relatedness is measured as the average of the Wright’s coefficients between each household member and the child. Instrumental variables for fostering include...

Studies of the relationship between HIV/AIDS and children’s educational attainment largely focus on the direct impacts of parental illness and death, overlooking the potential indirect impact that parental knowledge and perceptions of their HIV status may have on children’s school...

We review the relationship between polygyny and HIV and identify a positive individual-level correlation, and a negative ecological correlation. We subsequently examine two mechanisms that contribute to the individual-level correlation. First, we find that men in polygynous marriages have more...

Almost all commonly used indirect fertility estimation methods rely on the P/F ratio. As originally conceived, the ratio compares cumulated cohort fertility with cumulated period fertility on the basis of three, fairly strong, assumptions. The intention of this paper is to interrogate what...

In this paper, I investigate the ways that young men in rural southern Malawi talk about HIV and their own perceptions of risk. I relate these findings first to evolving gender relations in Malawi during the AIDS epidemic, and second to HIV prevention measures, with specific recommendations for...

This paper explores the significance of social relationships to two important stages in the process of sexual behavioral change in response to increased HIV/AIDS risk in rural Africa: the perceived risk of becoming HIV-infected through unprotected sexual intercourse and the preferred methods of...

I examine if and how rural Malawians alter their childbearing as a consequence of concern regarding the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The paper is motivated by the debate which opposes two ideas regarding the childbearing effect of high HIV infection rates and heightened AIDS mortality: one, the...

Extra-marital sexual partnerships (EMSPs) are a major route of HIV/AIDS transmission in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we investigate the roles of two types of male friendships - best friends and friends with whom they talk about AIDS - in determining whether men have EMSPs. Using data from...

There is much speculation regarding the contribution of China’s changing demography to the spread of HIV/AIDS. We employ a bio-behavioral macrosimulation model of the heterosexual spread of HIV/AIDS to evaluate the roles that China’s unique demographic conditions -- (1) masculine...