Inequality related to time is one of the factors that puts women at a disadvantaged position in the labour market, because women often bear the brunt of household chores.
- •The National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC) wants the inequality related to time to be addressed by creating a public childcare system.
- •While releasing the Inequality Diagnostic Kenya Report, the Commission noted that the labour force participation rate recovered from a small decline between 2000 and 2006 and has been around 75 per cent since 2014.
- •The labour force participation of men is consistently higher than that of women and the gender gap widened until 2016.
The gap subsequently narrowed until 2019, but increased again as a result of COVID-19, which apparently affected the labour force participation of women more than that of men.
“Providing social protection to women as providers of unpaid care work is an option that might be considered,” said Dr. Joyce Mwikali Mutinda, Chairperson, National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC).
The study observed that the rise of unemployment particularly among women, and the decrease in labour force participation can have severe long-term inequality and other undesirable developmental outcomes.
“But even if women can and want to participate in economic activities, they do often not have the same degree of access to jobs as men, because of discrimination,” she noted.
- •A suggestion to address this is to stimulate companies and the private sector in general to have a 50/50 proportion of hiring processes to level the female/male disparity in terms of employment opportunities.
- •Another aspect of gender inequality in the labour market is unequal pay for equal work.
- •According to the study, the share of wage and salaried workers showed a marked increase in the past two decades, from 34 per cent in 2000 to 51 per cent in 2019.
The share of self-employment dropped from two-thirds of the total workforce to slightly less than half. The proportion of wage employment is larger for men than for women, though the gender gap is narrowing over time.
“We recommend more studies on this topic to make employers more aware of this issue, to help improve empowerment of women, and to have a stronger basis for designing specific policies to address this issue, which is also a cause of overall income inequality,” said Betty Sungura, National Gender and Equality Commission Secretary/CEO.
Finland’s Ambassador to Kenya Pirrka Tapiola, noted that “Equality brings prosperity, stability, peace and inclusivity. In Kenya, escaping the middle-income trap will demand a strategic focus on equal opportunities and inclusive development.”
