Browsing by Author "Turan, Belgi"

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Citation - WoS: 24
Citation - Scopus: 23
Hiv and Fertility in Africa: First Evidence From Population-Based Surveys
(Springer, 2013) Juhn, Chinhui; Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem; Turan, Belgi; Department of Business
The historical pattern of the demographic transition suggests that fertility declines follow mortality declines, followed by a rise in human capital accumulation and economic growth. The HIV/AIDS epidemic threatens to reverse this path. We utilize recent rounds of the demographic and health surveys that link an individual woman's fertility outcomes to her HIV status based on testing. The data allow us to distinguish the effect of own positive HIV status on fertility (which may be due to lower fecundity and other physiological reasons) from the behavioral response to higher mortality risk, as measured by the local community HIV prevalence. We show that although HIV-infected women have significantly lower fertility, local community HIV prevalence has no significant effect on noninfected women's fertility.
Citation - WoS: 16
Citation - Scopus: 18
Left Behind: Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital in the Midst of Hiv/Aids
(Springer, 2013) Akbulut-Yuksel, Mevlude; Turan, Belgi; Department of Business
This paper provides evidence on how adverse health conditions affect the transfer of human capital from one generation to the next. We explore the differential exposure to HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa as a substantial health shock to both household and community environment. We utilize the recent rounds of the Demographic and Health Surveys for 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. First, we find that an additional year of maternal education leads to a 0.37-year increase in children's years of schooling in the developing economies in sub-Saharan Africa. Second, our results show that mother's HIV status has substantial detrimental effects on inheritability of human capital. We find that the association between infected mothers' and their children's human capital is 30 % less than the general population. Finally, focusing only on noninfected mothers and their children, we show that HIV prevalence in the community also impairs the intergenerational human capital transfers even if mother is HIV negative. The findings of this paper are particularly distressing for these already poor, HIV-torn countries as in the future they will have even lower overall level of human capital due to the epidemic.