This dissertation formulates the situation under which differential migration waves of the genders to cities, coupled with potential wealth imbalances, can create an environment that is conducive to the spread of HIV. The model of the marital market and the extra marital market presented on Chapter 2 builds on this assumption and the fact that the migration waves that are increasingly male dominated create an excess demand for the extra-marital market. In the model presented in this paper, homogenous agents make two choices: the decision to marry and whether and how much they will participate in the extramarital market. In addition to showing the macro effects, the model differentiates between the different agents to show the differential risk faced by the two genders and agents which face different outcomes in the marital market.

In Chapter 3 the OLG model is constructed to show the effect of the extramarital market on the infection equilibrium. The OLG model allows us to capture the intergenerational transmission of the disease, first under conditions of no marriage, and then under a model where marriage and population with different risk characteristics is investigated. The specific exogenous factors which are conducive to the rapid spread of HIV and high steady state levels for the disease is investigated under the assumption that individuals live two periods, and have knowledge about population level epidemic rates. This idea is formalized in this paper by a model where the two genders have differential, but interrelated epidemics, and different age groups are differentially effected by the disease. Steady state assumptions are used, to look at the levels that the disease gravitates towards, and to outline which variables are influential in determining the steady state HIV level. Wage differences between the genders (favoring the males), and urban population differentials (favoring the males) are shown to increase the steady state HIV level for both genders in the society, with a bigger burden falling on the female population. The effect of the wage differences of the genders on the epidemic also depends on the urban population inequalities.

In Chapter 4 empirical investigations are carried out to check the validity of the assumptions and results of the model. It is shown that gender inequalities in terms of population and labor market outcomes when they favor men, create an environment that assists the rapid development of HIV/AIDS that leads to a higher proportion of the population having HIV at any given time. In addition to this marital market equilibria, and the time of entry and the level of age mixing is found to be significant in determining the steady state level of the disease. In addition to these, marital rate and inequality between the genders is found to create an HIV epidemic which tends to put a large direct burden on the female population. Sensitivity analysis is carried out to check the robustness of the results, and age of epidemic and the country being Muslim which was shown to be significant in explaining different strands of HIV is shown to be insignificant in my analysis.