Women Empowerment in Kenya Still Low

The world of work is changing fast, through innovation, increasing mobility and informality. But it needs to change faster to empower women, whose work has already driven many of the global gains in recent decades.

It is very unfortunate that in this era, women still occupy jobs that pay less and provide no benefits. They earn less than men, even as they shoulder the enormous and economically essential burden of unpaid care and domestic work. Realizing women’s economic empowerment requires transformative change so that prosperity is equitably shared and no one is left behind.

The international community has made this commitment in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Every woman should enjoy her right to decent work. A lot still needs to be put in place as far as gender equity is concerned since women are still being perceived as being behind men.

Statistics from Unicef stated that 52 percent of Kenyan school going children are girls, which is higher as compared to that of boys in primary school, but even with these boys are more likely to complete primary education and go on to secondary school. This pattern tends to be repeated at higher levels of the education system: when it comes to tertiary education there are almost twice as many men enrolled as women.

Researchers have also highlighted the great variation in female education across the country. In general, girls are far more likely to go to school in the wealthiest parts of the country than in the poorest. In places at the top of the income scale, the majority of girls go to school. But in very poor areas such as Wajir, this figure can drop as low as 25 percent.

One consequence of lower levels of educational achievement is that women tend to earn less than men. Women are less likely to be employed than men. And in most cases when they get employed, they will end up earning less than men. Although good data is hard to come by, it seems that on average women earn 67 percent of the salary of men – in other words, a third less.

Currently, women in Kenya do the vast majority of agricultural work and produce/market the majority of food. Yet they earn only a fraction of the income generated and own a nominal percentage of assets, the rest is taken by their husbands or is used to cater for their families.

Only 29 percent of those earning a formal wage throughout the country are women, leaving a huge percentage of women to work in the informal sector without any federal support. The effect is severe with nearly 40 percent of households run solely by women, and, because of a lack of fair income, nearly all these homes suffer from poverty or extreme poverty.

As the International women’s day is being celebrated, women in Kenya need to be prioritized more. Efforts have been put in ensuring that women and girls have access to resources that will empower them, but more still needs to be done so as to fee l the impact. More women need to be elected during the upcoming general elections as they can as well deliver even more than what men in political position have been doing. It is about time that the country believes in women leadership if at all change needs take place.

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