Perceived HIV Risk and Fertility Intentions: Evidence from 11 Demographic and Health Surveys

Simona Bignami, Université de Montréal
Sarah R. Hayford, Arizona State University

HIV infection may affect fertility by influencing desires and intentions for having children. Indeed, even in the absence of HIV testing, people living in areas with high levels of HIV infection are known to form opinions about the likelihood that they are or will become infected. Yet, it is difficult to draw solid conclusions about the relationship between fertility intentions and HIV risk (whether actual or perceived) because existing studies differ in their definitions of key concepts and data collections methods and because much existing research consists of small-scale studies conducted in different countries at different time periods. This paper adds to existing research by by systematically comparing the relationship between perceived HIV risk and fertility intentions in 11 developing countries with comparable quantitative data collected by the Demographic and Health Surveys at the end of the 1990s.