OBJECTIVES: HIV/AIDS (Human immunodeficiency virus/Acquired immune deficiency syndrome) not only has a strong impact on the health of the worldwide population but also affects the labour status of HIV-positive people. The primary aim of this paper is to compare the labour participation of people living with HIV (PlwHIV) with the labour participation of the general population along the last business cycle in Spain

METHODS: The data used are from the Hospital Survey on HIV-AIDS and the Labour Force Survey from 2001 to 2010. A statistical matching method was used to analyse the differences between the labour participation of PlwHIV and the general population. Additionally, several specific models categorised into different subgroups (gender, education, source of infection and level of defences) were also performed.

RESULTS: We identified a convergence in labour participation across the period in the two populations considered: PlwHIV was 23% less likely to have a job than the general population during 2001-2002 and 14% less likely during 2009-2010

CONCLUSIONS:

Inmunological status, source of infection and level of education play a relevant role among the PlwHIV population when comparing their labour participation with the general population. Is spite of this positive result, the likelihood of being employed in HIV-positive people continues to be different from that of non-carriers. Our study shows that institutional features of labour markets are relevant and should be considered in comparison between countries.