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 members at 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 sex to buy food, or take children out of school to work. Illness and death due to HIV/AIDS also mean that increasing numbers of households are headed by women or elderly people. They have to assume much of the additional ‘burden of care’ to provide for dependents, including orphans and sick relatives.

Certain factors can mean that the situation is worse for some HIV/AIDS-affected households than for others. Researchers from the Food and Agriculture Organization in Italy uses information from Zambia’s Northern Province to find out what makes some households particularly vulnerable to the impacts of HIV/AIDS.

In northern Zambia, the situation is worse for households headed by women. Women have a lower education and economic status, which makes it harder to earn money elsewhere. Women tend to 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 their property rights and male relatives often claim ownership of assets.

Other factors that affect the vulnerability of households include:

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

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

• Because female-headed households are particularly vulnerable to the burdens of HIV/AIDS, there must be a stronger emphasis on gender equality. This includes enforcing laws on female inheritance and property rights to prevent male relatives from seizing assets from women when their husbands die.
• Support programmes must be directed to the poorest people in society: credit, education and other services should target elderly people and other excluded groups.
• Agricultural interventions should focus not only on increased productivity but also increasing food security and income for the poorest farmers.

Source(s):
‘Patterns of Vulnerability to AIDS Impacts in Zambian Households’, Development and Change 37 (5), pages 1073-1092, by Esther Wiegers, John Curry, Alessandra Garbero and John Hourihan, 2006

Funded by: Development Co-operation Ireland

id21 Research Highlight: 30 April 2007

Further Information:
Esther Wiegers
Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division
Food and Agriculture Organization
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 Rome
Italy

Contact the contributor: Esther.Wiegers@wur.nl

Food and Agriculture Organization, Italy

Other related links:
id21 insights 64 'Dealing with HIV and AIDS'

id21 viewpoints 'Poverty, AIDS and hunger: breaking out of Malawi’s poverty trap'

'A vicious cycle: AIDS, famine and poverty'

'Using local knowledge to overcome HIV/AIDS in Swaziland'

See id21's links for HIV/AIDS