This project focuses on the impact of HIV/AIDS on children, families, and households in Southern Africa, the region of the world most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In Southern Africa over 20% of adults 15-49 are infected with HIV and over 15% of children less than 18 are orphans (UNICEF 2004). Although reasons for parental death vary, the primary cause of parental death in most Southern African countries is AIDS, and AIDS as a cause of death is growing in this region. Concern for the well being of children has emerged because recent research suggests that children who experience parental death are on average disadvantaged relative to other children. However, two critical questions remain unanswered: 1) what accounts for this difference among orphans and non-orphans? And, 2 what are the factors that ameliorate or exacerbate child disadvantage? Our ability to answer these and related questions is severely constrained because we know little about who children live with, why they live where they do, and the range of social connections they have to adults within and beyond the household. Yet, these factors are critical to child outcomes. This study will describe children's living arrangements, explore the mechanisms connecting living arrangements and child outcomes, and analyze the relationship between living arrangements and one specific child outcome, child schooling, in each case attending to the role of orphan status, parental residence, gender, and kin and non-kin connections within and beyond the household. The proposed research is unique among studies in Southern Africa for its combination of detailed qualitative data and nationally representative survey data. The qualitative data, which were collected during extended residence by the PI in village Lesotho, include participant observation and 124 in-depth interviews with caregivers, children, and key informants. The survey data, from the 2001 Lesotho Demographic Survey, offer a sample of 29,000 children 0-16 years. The specific aims of this project are to: (1) describe children's living arrangements, and reasons for these arrangements, emphasizing orphan status, parental residence, kinship, and gender. (2) Explore the mechanisms linking orphan status, living arrangements, and child outcomes. (3) analyze the relationship between orphan status, living arrangements, and child schooling. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]