EXPLAINING GENDER DISPARITY IN RISKY SEXUAL BEHAVIOR AMONG UNDERGRADUATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN ETHIOPIA: A DECOMPOSITION ANALYSIS

BACKGROUND: Young people commonly engage in risky sexual behavior and suffer from the undesirable consequences. Nowadays, gender based inequalities on sexual behaviors and its determinants are serious obstacles to HIV prevention and necessitate emphasis. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research is to explain gender disparity in risky sexual behaviors among undergraduate students in Ethiopia. METHOD: Institution based comparative cross-sectional study design was used. The sample size was calculated using a formula to estimate the difference between two population proportion and a total of 579 subjects participated in this study. Respondents enrolled under other programs than regular program were excluded. Simple random sampling method was used to select the respondents. SPSS 21 was used for data analysis. A decomposition analysis was used to determine the magnitude and drivers of gender disparity in risky sexual behavior. RESULT: There is a 33.2% extra risk in sexual behavior among males with a 95% CI (26.4, 39.9). Of this disparity, 32.6% with 95% CI (6.5 to 15.1) is attributable to differences in characteristics between boys and girls. The remaining 67.4% with a 95% CI (14.1 to 30.6) of the raw difference is, however, explained by the differences in response behavior to changes in characteristics between the sexes. Being Muslim, communication with parents, communication with friends, substance use and knowledge about HIV/AIDS explained the observed male-female gap in risky sexual behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Significant gender difference was observed with a higher risk in male respondents compared to female. Being Muslim, communication with parents, communication with friends, substance use and knowledge about HIV/AIDS explained the gap in risky sexual behavior across gender. Therefore, gender sensitive strategies should be developed to reduce the observed gender disparity in risky sexual behavior.