Economic impact of HIV/AIDS on women

Abstract

Ever since its detection, HIV has wreaked much havoc, particularly in the developing world. In recent times, on account of increasing numbers of infected women and their heightened vulnerability to HIV, it has often been stated that there is a feminization of the epidemic. The aim of the present study was to find if there were significant gender-biases to the economic impact of HIV/AIDS; with the same being done through an intra-household (female-male) and inter-household (HH) (female-female) comparative analyses. By making use of chi-square and Mann-Whitney U-tests, the article concludes that: 1) female-headed HIV/AIDS households (HHs) are at a significant disadvantage over the control group of female headed non-HIV/AIDS HHs; 2) though on most counts the economic impact was biased against women in the control group; unlike generally expected perception, the same were often gender-neutral in HIV/AIDS HHs; 3) gender-neutrality of impact in HIV/AIDS HHs was due to substantial, often significant, adoption of coping mechanisms by female-headed HHs; and 4) whenever gender biases occurred in HIV/AIDS HHs, they were usually to the disadvantage of women.