In the bustling settlements of Nakuru City, the backbone of households is not only built on bricks and mortar but also on the invisible labour of women. Unpaid household labour, including cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, and parenting, forms the bedrock of daily life for many families here.
The women are not only caregivers but also the primary educators of their children. They invest countless hours in nurturing the next generation, teaching essential life skills, values, and cultural traditions.
Most of this labour remains invisible and unrecognised and therefore unpaid.
Unpaid household labour is not just a matter of cultural norms and ingrained gender roles; it has profound economic implications.
Take the case of Rose Wangui, a mother of four. She rises at the crack of dawn and prepares her two schoolgoing children.
Following this, Wangui dedicates her attention to her other two children, one of whom is barely four years old, while the youngest is merely two. She nourishes them, tends to their hygiene, diligently sweeps and mops the floors, launders her husband's and children's clothing, and procures additional water from the vendor.
As noon arrives, Wangui's focus remains divided between her kitchen duties and caring for her two young children. Her husband earns a modest income as a casual laborer in Nakuru Town.
But Wangui knows the prospect of seeking paid employment only will only arise when her youngest child reaches the age of five and begins attending school.
However, a project that seeks to improve access to quality and affordable care for children between the ages of six months and six years might change that.
The project indicates that if women like Wangui have access to trusted daycare centres to leave their children, they can even find paying work.
It is run by Kidogo, a social enterprise that trains childcare centres on responsive caregiving, learning through play, positive discipline, child nutrition, and running the childcare centre as a micro-business.
The centres are designed for low-income women, with relatively affordable charges. They have flexible operating hours, between 6am and 7.30pm. Service providers conduct daily quality health checks, promote hygienic practices, and involve the parents, thus fostering in them a sense of trust and peace of mind that their children are safe.
The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), a Nairobi-based research organisation, evaluated the Kidogo model in Nakuru County between August 2021 to August 2023. The research investigated how such a model could be replicated and scaled in other parts of the country ensuring that quality is maintained.
“The context of our work is based on reports that women spend disproportionately more time than men on unpaid care work such as childcare and household responsibilities,” said Dr Patricia Kitsao-Wekulo, a child development researcher with APHRC, who took part in the study.
Dr Patricia said unpaid responsibilities, such as taking care of children at home, take a lot of the time women would otherwise have spent on paid labour opportunities.
“Previous studies have shown that provision of quality childcare can enable women to have more freedom of choice and engage better in meaningful paid work,” she said.
However, many childcare centres do not offer quality services and therefore women are not comfortable taking their children there.
APHRC’s study evaluated the effectiveness of the Kidogo model in enhancing the economic outcomes of women living in low-income communities in Nakuru County.
“We compared childcare centres which were exposed to the Kidogo intervention with those that were not exposed. We conducted quantitative and qualitative interviews with mothers and childcare providers in both groups. We also carried out qualitative interviews with fathers and policymakers to obtain a broader perspective of the status of childcare provision in Nakuru County,” Patricia said.
The preliminary findings of the study are both promising and illuminating. They showed that improving the quality of childcare provision not only leads to increased income for childcare providers and mothers but also liberates their time, enabling them to engage in other productive activities.
The research team shared the findings with policymakers from Nakuru County Government's Departments of Social Services, Health, and Education, shedding light on the current childcare landscape in the county.
Their research is titled “Empowering women through the provision of quality childcare services and strengthening their capacities to engage in paid labor opportunities.”
Kidogo Enterprise has also set up a Center of Excellence (CoE), a model childcare facility, in Nakuru Town West sub-county. The CoE was officially launched by the Director for Social Services in February 2023.
On the other hand, APHRC formed a public-private partnership that has been continually engaging on issues of childcare in Nakuru County.
This continual engagement resulted in the formation of a technical working group (TWG) which comprises members from the different county departments, APHRC and Kidogo. The main aim of the TWG is to engage on issues around childcare policies, legislation and how to deal with existing gaps in service provision.
The technical working group is trying to revive the Nakuru County Childcare Facilities Bill, which has been dormant since 2019.
The proposed legislation provided that a childcare facility would undergo compulsory inspection twice every year to ascertain whether safety measures to protect children from injury and illness, such as emergency exits, adequate ventilation, lockable doors and windows and ablution blocks suitable for children, are in working conditions.
“As members of the TWG, we are also working with the relevant officials to draft a Childcare Policy that will guide the provision and regulation of childcare in the county,” Patricia said.
The APHRC study was funded under the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) East Africa initiative, which seeks to spur transformative change to advance gender equality in the world of work. It is a partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
The initiative seeks to provide evidence and practical tools and guidance to inform public and private sector investments on women’s economic empowerment.
It also aims to promote sustainable alliances between practitioners and researchers, support Southern-based institutions through organizational support and global connections, and connect development agencies, policymakers and data providers to a knowledge and evidence hub to inform their implementation and to inform policies for impact at scale.
“Our work has made a difference by providing evidence on childcare provision in the county. It is through our evidence that policymakers have developed an understanding of existing gaps in the provision of childcare services and what needs to be done,” Patricia said.
“By setting up the CoE, we were also able to show what it takes to provide quality and affordable childcare and how this can be replicated elsewhere.”
Dr Patricia said correcting the challenges women go through is a long-term effort. For instance, the project officially ended in August 2023, yet there are other activities planned beyond this time. Such activities include continual engagements through the TWG towards finalisation of the Childcare Bill and Policy.
“Financial limitations may hinder the continuity of these engagements. We endeavoured to set up frameworks that will enable further engagements beyond the project line but have no guarantee that these will work,” Patricia said.
Her hope is that women in low-income areas can have access to quality childcare centres to leave their children and go look for work. That means Wangui does not have to wait until her last born reaches five years and goes to school, to find a paying job.
