A research report submitted to the School of Social Science, University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the Master of Arts in Demography and Population Studies, November 2017 / Introduction: Across Sub-Saharan Africa, studies have shown transactional sex, characterized
by the exchange of money or gifts for sex, to be one of the major contributing factors of
HIV/AIDS infection. Risky sexual behaviours such as multiple sexual partners, non-condom
use and transactional sex are driving forces behind negative health outcomes of young people.
Thus, the aim of the study is to determine the association between socio-economic status and
transactional sex among young women in South Africa, primarily to investigate whether
transactional sex is a survival strategy or not among young women in South Africa.
Methods: Secondary data analysis was done from a cross-sectional study conducted in 2012
by the Third National Communication Survey. This analysis was limited to 4 586 167
(weighted) sexually active females aged 16-24 who reported engaging in transactional sex.
STATA version 13 was used to analyse this data. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse
data at the univariate level. The Chi-squared test was conducted to test the relationship between
the outcome variable and the independent variables. The complementary log-log regression
model was used to analyse the data at multivariate level to identify the association between
demographic factors (age, race, marital status, type of residence and province), socio-economic
characteristics (education status or training status and employment status), beliefs towards
behaviour, subjective norms towards behaviour and transactional sex.
Results: Transactional sex was higher among women whose age at first sex was 18-19 (6.34%)
compared to women of older ages 20+ years (0.4%). African women were likely to engage
more in transactional sex (3.46%), compared to women of other races (2.48%). This study has
found that a relationship between women who were not in Education, Employment and
Training (NEETS) and transactional sex did not exist (AOR 1.10, 95% CI: 0.62-1.96). Single
women had higher odds of engaging in transactional sex compared to cohabitating women and
married women (AOR 1.04, 95% CI: 0.42-2.54).
Conclusion: The findings of this study have shown that although transactional sex is a common
behaviour among young women in South Africa, there is no relationship between socio
economic status and transactional sex. Being NEETS has no association with young women
engaging in transactional sex, which means that young women were more likely to engage in
transactional sexual relationships for reasons other than survival; that is reasons for having
fashionable clothes, cars, expensive holidays, and airtime. However, factors such as early age
at first sexual encounter, race, and beliefs about behaviour and subjective norms were
associated with transactional sex. The fact that some young women believed that they would
not be infected with HIV suggests that there is a need to have intervention programmes to
educate young people about HIV risk factors. This study is relevant in informing health
policies, planning and programme designs of sexual and reproductive health services in South
Africa. Transactional sex is a sensitive issue; problems of underreporting may be expected. / XL2018
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/24552 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Sello, Matshidiso Valeria |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (vii, 66 leaves), application/pdf, application/pdf |
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