Employment, Physical Abuse, and Sexually Transmitted Infection Risk in a Longitudinal Cohort of Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Rural South Africa
Author: Maya Luetke
Publisher:
Published: 2021
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBackground: The global burden of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remains substantial. South Africa, the setting for this study, is disproportionately affected by these adverse outcomes. Female employment, and female economic empowerment more generally, may impact these adverse outcomes by strengthening women's bargaining power within the context of romantic/intimate relationships and thus increasing their ability to negotiate their needs or, in contrast, increasing their exposure to male backlash as a male partner threatened by changes to the status quo gender norms seeks to reestablish controls. Alternatively, employment may be associated with these outcomes because those that self-select into employment may also be experiencing acute economic vulnerability that predisposes them to the outcomes of IPV, negative sexual health outcomes, and STI acquisition. In this dissertation, we aimed to assess the impact of employment on the risk of IPV, transactional sex, constrained relationship power, and HIV/HSV-2 infection among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in rural South Africa.