Schooling, Income, and HIV Risk in Malawi

Does Schooling Protect Young Women From HIV?

This study is designed to evaluate a two-year randomized intervention in Malawi that provides cash transfers to current schoolgirls (and young women who have recently dropped out of school) to stay in (and return to) school in order to understand the possible effects of such programs on the sexual behavior of the beneficiaries and their subsequent HIV risk.

Motivation:

Education has been suggested as a "social vaccine" to prevent the spread of HIV (Jukes, Simmons, and Bundy, 2008), but almost all of the evidence we have on the link between school attendance (or attainment) and the risk of HIV infection comes from cross-sectional studies. Furthermore, the role of income (especially that of women's poverty) has been hypothesized as a significant factor in the spread of HIV in SSA, but again there is no credible evidence showing a causal link between income and HIV risk. A randomized intervention, such as the one proposed here, that provides randomly varied amounts of cash transfers to young individuals and their guardians is the perfect setting to examine the possible existence of such causal relationships.

Objectives:

The objective of the proposed study here is to provide credible evidence on issues about which we still know very little. Specifically, the main questions the study will try to answer are the following:

1. Are the observed effects of a CCT associated with the transfer or the conditionality imposed on the recipient?
2. Do the outcomes of interest improve with increased benefit levels set by the program?
3. Do CCT programs for schooling have any positive health impacts, including prevention of STIs such as HIV/AIDS among young people?

Inclusion Criteria:

• female
• 13-22 years old
• never married