A Cross-National Analysis of Sex-Specific HIV Prevalence Rates and Women's Access to Property, Land, and Loans in Developing Countries

Abstract

Despite overall declining HIV infection rates, gender inequality in HIV prevalence rates is striking. On average across the world, young women have about twice the HIV prevalence rates as their male counterparts. Many scholars point to the particular vulnerabilities that women face in regard to HIV risk. However, they have not employed gender stratification theory to explain gender disparities in HIV prevalence. This analysis builds on a relatively small, but growing body of cross-national research on HIV by analyzing sex-specific prevalence rates among fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds. Using new data on women's access to property, land, and loans, I estimate the effects of women's status on female prevalence, male prevalence, and the ratio of female to male prevalence in a sample of seventy-eight low- and middle-income countries. Net of economic development and a wide variety of other control variables, women's access to property and access to bank loans have significant negative effects on all three measures of HIV prevalence. Female secondary school enrollment is the only other variable that has robust negative effects across all models. Thus, improving women's status through education and access to property and loans is associated with better health for everyone, not just women themselves.