A high price to pay: for education, subsistence or a place in the job market

Abstract

This chapter cursorily reviews a variety of evidence, mainly from Sub-Saharan Africa, related to the current incidence and speed of spread of HIV/AIDS. It draws and builds upon an array of previous work.1 It calls attention to some of the discussions and data-supporting hypotheses which link more rapid sexual transmission of the virus to the degree of prevalence of several documented, chang ing, gender-role attributes. The latter are involved in the economic, political, military and social crises transforming familial and non-familial institutions. They are associated with widespread social and spatial dislocation of populations; escalating impoverishment and increasingly sharp divergences in wealth and power. They concern aspects of what has been loosely termed in the past ‘women's status’. These include on the one hand the degrees of inequality, subordination, dependence, neglect, deprivation, irresponsibility, coercion and even violence, suffered by girls and women in a variety of role relationships; for example as daughters, wives, community members, employees. On the other hand they include the types of socio-legal protection which they do or do not enjoy in their various capacities and their relative access to and control of resources required for sustainable livelihoods and human development.