It also includes post-school learning in universities, colleges and apprenticeships. The impact of the AIDS epidemic on individuals, families, and communities at the micro-level of society can be immense. People fall ill, cannot work, and lose income. Their families spend money on care and treatment and lose further income in acting as carers. Although the elite classes can be seriously affected, the greatest impact is on the poor.
Women are at a special disadvantage.
On the other, they are at a special risk, often gaining access to income through sexual relationships with men. For widows and orphans, loss of land, shelter and inheritance may force them to depend on relatives or migrate to cities, where they might join an urban underclass of commercial sex workers and street children. As a result of all these social and economic processes, the AIDS epidemic can have a serious impact on the education sector - specifically on the demand for, supply of, and quality of the education provided at all levels. As a result of HIV and AIDS, fewer children may need education because the birth rate will decline following the early deaths of potential parents. In general there will not be a fall in the absolute number of children, but rather the rate of increase will decline.