A Closer Examination of the HIV/Fertility Linkage ... - Measure DHS

eplacement behavior in Ghana and Kenya. Kalemli-Ozcan (2005) uses cross-countryregressions to suggest an insurance behavior mechanism via a positive correlation between HIVand the total fertility rate.Another possibility is that women who perceive a higher risk of death from HIV/AIDSmay desire fewer children, possibly in the belief that no one would be able to take care of thechildren. Greiser and coauthors (2001) based on qualitative evidence from Zimbabwe find thatcouples are more likely to want fewer children in response to fears of their own HIV-relatedmortality.Changes in fertility actions: The extent to which a woman puts her new fertility desires intopractice and actually changes her fertility will be constrained by her knowledge of how to controlher fertility, availability of contraceptive methods, and ability to practice fertility control.Practices that can alter fertility roughly follow the classic proximate determinants of fertility,including traditional and modern methods of contraception, age at first marriage or coitus,divorce, breastfeeding, coital frequency, and sterilization.The ability to change coital frequency and type of sexual act will depend not only on awoman’s fertility desires, but also on her ability to control childbearing. Women may be subjectto violence, domestic or otherwise, that constrains their ability to limit their fertility (seeRutenberg 2000 for a discussion). There is little in the literature to suggest that male partnershave a fertility response to perceived risk of HIV. However, it is quite possible that men maychange their fertility desires and behaviors in response to HIV.6