Risky businessthe market for unprotected commercial sex

Resumo

Each day close to 20,000 people become infected with the HIV virus worldwide; a large portion of whom are infected through unprotected sex with sex workers. While condoms are an effective defense against the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, large numbers of sex workers are not using them with their clients. We argue that some sex workers are willing to take the risk because clients are willing to pay more to avoid using condoms. Using a panel data set from Mexico, we estimate that sex workers received a 23 percent premium for unprotected sex from clients who requested not to use a condom. However, this premium jumped to 46 percent if the sex worker was considered very attractive. These results suggest that the current policies aimed at educating sex workers about risk, empowering them and improving their access to condoms need to be complemented with interventions aimed at teaching clients about the 'joy of safe sex' thereby increasing the demand for using condoms.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Estudo

Ano

2003

Instituição

Fundação Getulio Vargas. Escola de Pós-graduação em Economia

Fonte

Repositório da FGV

Idioma

Inglês

Acesso

Não informado

Identificador

oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/12950

Temas

Economia

Palavras-chave

EconomiaContenção de riscos biológicosDoenças sexualmente transmissíveisPreservativos