Driven by the prevailing gender norms, lack of income earning opportunities for women living with HIV and other issues including the amount of work required at home like caring for children and sick household members is quite common. Furthermore, such situations increase vulnerability of their families, increasing the pressure on children to leave the education system and start working to support themselves and their families. This loss of livelihood coupled with health expenditures increase due to out-of-pocket medical cost usually result into a vicious circle of rapid impoverishment among women living with HIV.
Economic empowerment efforts that focus on empowering HIV service recipients on easily replicable competencies to start their own business combined with marketing skills trainings and the establishment of support groups have demonstrated to be of great benefits on improving livelihood specifically to women living with HIV and their families.