Dealing with HIV/AIDS – not all households are equally affected

The impacts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on rural households in southern Africa are severe. Understanding how the differences between households affect their vulnerability is important for designing policies and programmes that respond to their needs.

Many households lose membersat their most productive age, meaning fewer workers to farm and produce food.Reduced ability to produce food can force households to sell assets or sell sexto buy food, or take children out of school to work. Illness and death due toHIV/AIDS also mean that increasing numbers of households are headed by women orelderly people. They have to assume much of the additional ‘burden of care’ toprovide for dependents, including orphans and sick relatives.

Certain factors can mean thatthe situation is worse for some HIV/AIDS-affected households than for others. Researchersfrom the Food and Agriculture Organization in Italy uses information fromZambia’s Northern Province to find out what makes some households particularlyvulnerable to the impacts of HIV/AIDS.

In northern Zambia, thesituation is worse for households headed by women. Women have a lower educationand economic status, which makes it harder to earn money elsewhere. Women tendto own fewer assets, such as agricultural equipment, and if their husbands die,they may also lose what they do own. Customary laws do not recognise theirproperty rights and male relatives often claim ownership of assets.

Other factors that affect thevulnerability of households include:

• With less labouravailable, households headed by women or elderly people tend to farm smallerareas and invest less in agriculture, which reduces productivity.
• Households headedby men, or those caring for orphans, have more labour available.
• Child labour hasincreased, which can affect children’s’ education and future earning capacity.
• Households caringfor sick people tend to take on more low-income activities, such as brewing beer.
• People with HIVand AIDS are affected by social stigma and a lack of energy to participate incommunity organisations. This means that they have weaker social networks torely on for support.

Research and policy onHIV/AIDS tends to treat all affected households as the same. This researchshows that gender, age and status make an important difference to how wellhouseholds can cope with the burdens of HIV/AIDS. There are several policyimplications from this research:

• Becausefemale-headed households are particularly vulnerable to the burdens ofHIV/AIDS, there must be a stronger emphasis on gender equality. This includesenforcing laws on female inheritance and property rights to prevent malerelatives from seizing assets from women when their husbands die.
• Support programmesmust be directed to the poorest people in society: credit, education and otherservices should target elderly people and other excluded groups.
• Agriculturalinterventions should focus not only on increased productivity but alsoincreasing food security and income for the poorest farmers.