Infidelity and HIV in South Africa

South Africa has one of the highest infidelity and HIV rates in the world. The high prevalence of HIV is partly due to the number of migrant laborers who travel seeking work, engage in extradyadic sex, and spread the virus to their partners upon returning home. The purpose of the current study was to investigate South Africans’ attitudes toward infidelity and HIV. Participants (n = 152) were men and women from Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. After providing consent, participants responded to questions about infidelity including how they defined infidelity, whether they thought it was a common occurrence, and if they had experienced it themselves. They also responded to questions about HIV, including how big of a problem they thought it was, whether HIV or AIDS was something they thought about, if they had ever been tested for HIV, how important they thought it was to get tested, and their own HIV status. Fifty participants defined infidelity as unfaithfulness in the context of a committed partnership, whether it was emotional or physical. Sixty-four participants believed it was an extremely common occurrence. A majority (n = 105) reported HIV as a major problem and of those, 79 thought infidelity was common. From the 105 people who thought HIV was a major issue, 101 also thought people should be regularly tested. Results from our study provide insight regarding the high incidence of infidelity in South Africa. Our findings suggest that individuals are highly concerned about HIV. We propose that future initiatives focus on strengthening families and reducing the need to separate low-income laborers from their families to find work.