HIV/AIDS and time allocation in rural Malawi

Abstract

AIDS-related morbidity and mortality are expected to have a large economic impact in rural Malawi, because they reduce the time that adults can spend on production for subsistence and on income-generating activities. However, households may compensate for production losses by reallocating tasks among household members. The data demands for measuring these effects are high, limiting the amount of empirical evidence. In this paper, we utilize a unique combination of qualitative and quantitative data, including biomarkers for HIV, collected by the 2004 Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project, to analyze the association between AIDS-related morbidity and mortality, and time allocation decisions in rural Malawian households. We find that AIDS-related morbidity and mortality have important economic effects on women’s time, whereas men’s time is unresponsive to the same shocks. Most notably, AIDS is shown to induce diversification of income sources, with women (but not men) reallocating their time, generally from work-intensive (typically farming and heavy chores) to cash-generating tasks (such as casual labor).

Knowledge politics in participatory climate change adaptation research on agroecology in Malawi

“…HIV positive women are at greater risk of food insecurity, nutritional and health concerns, alongside social stigma (Bryceson and Fonseca, 2006). There is evidence that HIV positive women in Malawi experience higher rates of poverty, shift more of their labor to other income-generating activities and away from farming (Bignami-Van Assche et al, 2011).…”

Income, health, and well-being in rural Malawi

“…The AIDS literature has ignored, until recently, the potential of individual and familial coping mechanisms for the HIV epidemic; empirical studies by Beegle (2005) and Bignami-Van Assche et al (forthcoming) have focused on this issue. Moreover, a preponderance of these analyses is based on case studies or cross-sectional surveys that do not permit important distinctions between immediate impacts and longer-term consequences, or lack controls for endowments, unobserved characteristics, behavioral determinants of individual’s and family’s health status, endogenous decision processes, and selective participation in risk prevention efforts.…”

Moral hazard in marriage: the use of domestic labor as an incentive device

“…Short-term work in the dry season usually involves tasks such as brick-making or vegetable gardening (Kerr 2005b). 5 Men are responsible for generating this cash income for non-food necessities, such as clothing, salt and soap (Bignami-Van Assche et al 2011). Women carry out a substantial amount of wage labor only when they are unmarried or their husbands do not contribute to the household.…”