THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS ON SMALL, MEDIUM AND LARGE ENTERPRISES¹

Abstract

Based on the Bureau of Economic Research (BER's) 2005 HIV/AIDS survey, this paper provides a snapshot view of the nature and the extent of the impact of HIV/AIDS on companies of different sizes in South Africa, as well as their response to the epidemic. Whereas the focus of most of the previous workplace surveys has been on "evaluating workplace responses", the present study also considers the economic impact of HIV/AIDS. This study provides evidence of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the largest sample of small, medium and large companies in South Africa to date. The survey results suggest that employer responses are strongly linked to company size, with the majority of medium and large companies indicating that they have an HIV/AIDS policy in place and small companies having done little in the way of action against the epidemic. Copyright (c) 2006 The Author. Journal compilation (c) 2006 Economic Society of South Africa.

Economic Growth, Income and Happiness: An Exploratory Study

“…With the idea of a “rainbow nation”, the early post‐1994 years of democracy in South Africa might have boosted the happiness of individuals, but many are disappointed, as despite years of positive economic growth rates, income inequality (as reflected by the Gini coefficient) has increased from 0.69 in 1996 to 0.77 in 2001 (HSRC, 2004:2). In addition, the rising HIV/AIDS pandemic and high rates of crime as well as corruption are having a detrimental effect on the country's economic growth and happiness of its people (Arndt and Lewis, 2000; Powdthavee, 2003; Ellis, 2006). About 25% of all deaths in South Africa in recent times are due to HIV/AIDS, and this has significantly reduced life expectancy.…”

Employers’ responses to the HIV epidemic in sub‐Saharan Africa: Revisiting the evidence

“…A third key dimension is firm size, with evidence suggesting that large firms are far more likely to implement workplace programmes or enact a formal HIV policy than medium‐sized and small firms (Bolton, ; Ellis, ; Ramachandran et al., ; Rosen et al., ), in part because HIV is either not an issue for small and medium firms that recruit more informally and thus may not have many HIV positive workers (or are more likely to avoid hiring them) (Coetzee, ), and also due to their inability to make expensive and costly investments in their workforce. Also, small firms may not face a strong imperative to present a positive public profile for external investors or shareholders.…”

Perceptions of HIV/AIDS policies and treatment programmes by Western Cape construction firms

“…support provided to HIV+ employees, presence of medical aid benefits, perceptions of what constitutes Downloaded by [University of California Santa Cruz] at 09:10 25 November 2014 the success of a treatment programme and perceptions regarding the financial viability of HIV/AIDS treatment programmes). The range of issues canvassed by the survey instrument was drawn from the background literature (see BER, 2004BER, , 2005Ellis, 2006;George and Quinlan, 2009). …”