Content area
Abstract
The effective employment of a country's labor force is one of the most important indicators of accessibility to income and hence the existence of unemployment and under-employment is a cause of poverty and results from perverse planning in many developing countries. In this regard women suffer the most in times of high unemployment. Kenyan women constitute almost a half of the potential labor force and dominate in the rural areas where they are engaged in various agricultural activities and domestic chores. The investigation of the dimensions and structure of female participation in the Kenyan economy and the underlying factors which enhance/inhibit their involvement in various economic activities has long been over due. This study focuses on the determinants of female labor force participation in Kenya by utilising panel data collected in a labor force survey carried out during 1977/1978 and data from the annual census of employment and earnings in the modern sector.
We have employed mainly cross tabulations, graphic representation of some of the results, and multivariate regression analysis to integrate the results of the study into a coherent framework to facilitate policy and research recommendations for the future.
Overall the empirical results indicate diverse aspects of female labor force participation. Women's participation in the rural labor force is high and is determined by availability of land, sexual division of labor, seasonal labor demand, environmental factors such as morbidity and relative household economic status. Apparently a majority (95 percent) of rural women work on their family land holding. Their participation in wage employment and urban labor force is alarmingly low. The results yielded by the labor force survey indicate that only 21-26 percent of women were employed during the survey period. The major determinants of female labor force participation in urban areas apparently relate to industrial and occupational demand, education and economic necessity.
In conclusion, this study provides useful insights into the impact of various demographic, socio-economic and ecological factors on female labor force participation. The existence of unemployment and under-employment of women in rural and urban areas calls for the formulation of specific policies and programmes to enhance their participation and hence their livelihood.
