The workplace is still a man’s world

Men and women participate differently in the labour market in Kenya, depending on their age.

SOURCE: KENYA NATIONAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS 

In Summary

• However even in sectors where women are well represented, they are mostly confined to the lower cadre posts.
• Efforts to increase participation of women in the labour market appear to have made little progress in recent years.

By DOROTHY OTIENO
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Women dominate in education, health and social work and producing goods and services for household, which includes domestic work, an analysis of labour force data by Nation Newsplex reveals.

The analysis finds that while female participation is modest in the higher-paying professional scientific and technical fields (30 per cent) as well as finance and insurance (40 per cent), they dominate in education (52 per cent), health and social work (60 per cent) and producing goods and services for household, which includes domestic workers (64 per cent).

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However even in sectors where women are well represented, they are mostly confined to the lower cadre posts.

For instance, only about 20 per cent of women are school principals, even though they make up about half of primary school teachers.

The review that was done jointly with the Institute of Economic Affairs finds that women are most poorly represented in represented in administrative and office support roles, mining and quarrying, manufacturing and construction, where their participation is less than 20 per cent.

 The low representation of women in some of the sectors may be due to the fact that they are perceived to be too masculine for women.

Efforts to increase participation of women in the labour market appear to have made little progress in recent years.

In each of the three years from 2012 to 2014, 63 per cent of all waged employees were men, while 37 per cent were women. In other words only two out of five people in wage employment are woman.

Men and women participate differently in the labour market in Kenya, depending on their age. Overall, the chances of one getting employed increases with age but the possibility of getting employed for any age group are higher for males than females.