Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Wamuthenya, W.R.
Author-Name-Last: Wamuthenya
Author-Name-First: Wambui Rose
Author-Person: pwa437
Title: Economic crisis and women’s employment rate in a Sub-Saharan African country
Abstract: Focusing on urban Kenya, this paper attempts to identify the sources of the
 temporal increase in women’s employment rate between 1986 and 1998. The
 paper relies on labour survey data, household responses to coping strategies
 and case studies. The analysis presented in the paper shows that the bulk of the
 increase in women’s insertion into the labour market comes from an increase
 in the work participation of married women. While women’s higher
 educational endowments, particularly the increase in secondary education,
 account for an improvement in their employment prospects, the period also
 witnesses a sharp decline in the importance given to education in determining
 employment and by 1998, university graduates were just as likely to be
 employed as individuals with no education. The period between 1986 and 1998
 witnessed civil service reforms, restructuring of the private sector, firm
 closures and increasing job insecurity. Notwithstanding the role of education,
 declining opportunities for males, who in 1986 were the primary breadwinners
 and the accompanying income and employment insecurities within households
 seem to be the key factors prompting the sharp increase in the labour supply of
 (married) women. The analysis presented in this paper focused mainly on the
 period 1986 and 1998 and while more recent data would have provided an
 updated picture of the issues discussed in this paper, there is little evidence to
 suggest that the situation of women in Kenya’s labour market has changed
 substantially in recent years.
Creation-Date: 2010-04-01
File-URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/19427/wp500.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Series: RePEc:ems:euriss
Keywords: coping strategies, decomposition: composition and structural effects, deteriorating economic conditions, employment rate, urban households, women
Handle: RePEc:ems:euriss:19427