Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Working Papers in Economics,
University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics
No 638: Education and HIV incidence among young women: causation or selection?
Dick Durevall (), Annika Lindskog () and Gavin George ()
Additional contact information
Dick Durevall: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O. Box 640, SE 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden
Annika Lindskog: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O. Box 640, SE 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden
Gavin George: HEARD, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000 South Africa
Abstract: Several studies report that schooling protects against HIV infection in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study examines the effect of secondary school attendance on the probability of HIV incidence among young women aged 15-24, using panel data from rural KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Three approaches are used to distinguish causation from selection: instrumentation to identify the causal effect, a fixed effects model to control for constant unobserved factors and assessments of the bias from selection on unobserved variables. Although there is a strong negative association between secondary school attendance and HIV incidence, we are not able to find support for a causal effect. Thus, there is no evidence that interventions that increase secondary school attendance in KwaZulu-Natal would mechanically reduce HIV risk for young women. Our focus on school attendance, in contrast to studies that analyze school attainment, might explain the negative finding.
Keywords: HIV/AIDS; Education; Schooling; South Africa
31 pages, November 2015
Full text files
41117 HTML file
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Jessica Oscarsson ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0638This page generated on 2024-11-14 18:33:27.