Poverty, sexual behaviour, gender and HIV infection among young black men and women in Cape Town, South Africa

This paper contributes methodologically and substantively to the debate over the importance of poverty, sexual behaviour, and circumcision in HIV infection using panel data on young black men and women in Cape Town, South Africa. Methodological challenges include problems of endogeneity and blunt indicator variables, especially for the measurement of sexual behaviour. Noting these difficulties, we found that the importance of socio-economic and sexual-behavourial factors differed between men and women. While a clear association was found between the number of years of sexual activity and HIV status among both men and women, we found that past participation in a concurrent sexual partnership increased the odds of HIV infection for men but not for women. Women, but not men, who made the transition from school to tertiary education (our key indicator of socio-economic status) were less likely to be HIV positive than those who made the transition from school to unemployment. Both poverty and sexual behaviour matter, but in gendered ways.