Health costs of wealth gains: labor migration and perceptions of HIV/AIDS risks in Mozambique

Abstract

The study employs survey data from rural Mozambique to examine how men’s labor migrationaffects their non-migrating wives’ perceptions of HIV/AIDS risks. Using a conceptual frameworkcentered on tradeoffs between economic security and health risks that men’s migration entails fortheir left-behind wives, it compares women married to migrants and those married to non-migrantswhile also distinguishing between economically successful and unsuccessful migration. Theanalysis finds that the economic success of men’s migration, rather than migration itself,significantly predicts women’s worries about getting infected by their husbands or their ownextramarital partners, and their husbands’ stance on condom use. These findings are situatedwithin a broader context of socio-economic, gender, and marital dynamics and vulnerabilitiesproduced or amplified by male labor migration in sub-Saharan and similar developing settings.