Education, HIV, and Early Fertility: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
Open accessAbstract
A seven-year randomized evaluation suggests education subsidies reduce adolescent girls' dropout, pregnancy, and marriage but not sexually transmitted infection (STI). The government's HIV curriculum, which stresses abstinence until marriage, does not reduce pregnancy or STI. Both programs combined reduce STI more, but cut dropout and pregnancy less, than education subsidies alone. These results are inconsistent with a model of schooling and sexual behavior in which both pregnancy and STI are determined by one factor (unprotected sex), but consistent with a two-factor model in which choices between committed and casual relationships also affect these outcomes. (JEL I12, I18, I21, J13, J16, O15)
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Meta-analyses generally report weak impacts of standalone HIV-education programs, irrespective of whether they are delivered via classroom-based courses or peer-provided courses.
“However, meta-analyses generally report weak impacts of such standalone programs, irrespective of whether they are delivered via classroom-based courses [Gallant and Maticka-Tyndale 2004, McCoy et al. 2010, Du‡o et al. 2015] or peer-provided courses [Cornish and Campbell 2009].”
From Women's Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa (2020) · cites this paper as Duflo et al. 2015
The Study Design section describes a teacher-delivered HIV curriculum, and the Long-Run Effects summary reports no effect of the stand-alone program on HSV2 infection or pregnancies. This supports the classroom-based example of weak impacts. But this paper reports one experiment, not a meta-analysis or evidence that impacts are generally weak; the peer-provided-courses claim is attached to a different citation. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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Women's Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa
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Phillips, S. J., & Mbizvo, M. T. (2016) · International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics · doi:10.1016/j.ijgo.2015.10.005 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
- Authors
- Duflo, E., Dupas, P., & Kremer, M.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Department of Economics, Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94306 (e-mail: )
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kremer, Michael
- Venue
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2015-09-01
- Volume
- 105
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 2757-2797
- ISSN
- 0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4624413
- OpenAlex
- W3124286696
- Cited by
- 369
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 63.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
- Nike Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD039922)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Reproductive Health and Contraception
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare
- Keywords
- education subsidies, adolescent girls, school dropout, adolescent pregnancy, early marriage, HIV prevention, sexually transmitted infections, sexual behavior
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Clothing, Education, Educational Status, Extramarital Relations, Female, Fertility, Herpes Genitalis, Humans, Kenya, Male, Pregnancy, Pregnancy in Adolescence, Sexual Behavior, Sex Education, Sexual Abstinence, Sexual Partners, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Program Evaluation, HIV Infections, Condoms, Marital Status, Unsafe Sex, Young Adult
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