Sugar daddies and the danger of sugar: Cross-generational relationships, HIV/AIDS, and secondary schooling in Zambia

This chapter seeks to explore the nature of and motivations for cross-generational relationships, and to examine how these relationships structure, limit and enable access to schooling for youth in Ndola (Zambia). Amidst increasing HIV infection rates and decreasing economic opportunity, youth experiences in and outside of school provide information about the impact of macro-level influences, particularly global economic trends and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, on the lives of these young women. Utilizing qualitative methods that seek to explore the lived realities of Zambian youth, this study examines perceptions of the phenomenon of “sugar daddies” and how they are seen to effect educational access and opportunity for young women. Although the study finds that young women are finding ways to cope with being enmeshed in a context characterized by severe economic decline and an extensive HIV/AIDS crisis, the strategy of securing a “sugar daddy” is one that may result in deadly infection and social isolation. Furthermore, policymakers in Zambia can and should take the opportunity to rethink austerity measures and hostility to social spending as well as the content of public health education.