Sharing the Burden of Parental Death: Intrafamily Effects of HIV/AIDS Orphans on Fertility and Child Quality

Abstract

This paper estimates the effect of orphan supply in family networks through parental death on fertility and the quality of children of surviving adults using data from Malawi. To address the potential problem of joint determination of both fertility and mortality, we exploit differences between the patrilineal and matrilineal lineage systems in the composition of family networks and in the structure of contingent obligations. Comparing mortality effects in the matrilineal and patrilineal lineage systems, we find that supply of young orphans in family networks significantly reduces demand for children by surviving adults and raises the quality of their biological children. We do not find any effect when adult mortality does not generate orphans, suggesting that the estimates are indeed orphan effects. Our results from Malawi, a country with moderately high rates of HIV/AIDS incidence, suggest that the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa may reduce fertility through adoptive care of AIDS orphans in extended family networks.