Drying Climates and Gendered Suffering: Links Between Drought, Food Insecurity, and Women's HIV in Less-Developed Countries

Kelly F Austin; Mark D Noble; Virginia Kuulei Berndt

doi:10.1007/s11205-020-02562-x

Drying Climates and Gendered Suffering: Links Between Drought, Food Insecurity, and Women's HIV in Less-Developed Countries

Soc Indic Res. 2021;154(1):313-334. doi: 10.1007/s11205-020-02562-x. Epub 2020 Nov 24.

Authors

Kelly F Austin¹, Mark D Noble², Virginia Kuulei Berndt³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Lehigh University, 31 Williams Drive, Bethlehem, PA 18015 USA.
² Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Susquehanna University, 322 Fisher Hall, 514 University Avenue, Selinsgrove, PA 17870 USA.
³ Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, 322 Smith Hall, 18 Amstel Avenue, Newark, DE 19716 USA.

Abstract

HIV/AIDS represents the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age globally, and gender inequalities in the burden of HIV/AIDS are most pronounced in poorer countries. Drawing on ideas from feminist political ecology, we explore linkages between suffering from drought, food insecurity, and women's vulnerability to HIV. Using data from 91 less-developed countries, we construct a structural equation model to analyze the direct and indirect influence of these factors, alongside other socio-economic indicators, on the percentage of the adult population living with HIV that are women. We find that droughts are significant in shaping gender inequalities in the HIV burden indirectly through increased food insecurity. We draw on prior research to argue that due to gendered inequalities, food insecurity increases women's vulnerability to HIV by intensifying biological susceptibilities to the disease, reducing access to social and health resources, and motivating women to engage in risky sexual behaviors, such as transactional sex. Overall, our findings demonstrate that droughts serve as an important underlying factor in promoting HIV transmission among vulnerable women in poor countries, and that food insecurity is a key mechanism in driving this relationship.

Keywords: Drought; Environment; Food insecurity; Gender; HIV/AIDS.