• Kenya successfully reduced poverty rates from 36.5 per cent in 2005 to 27.2 per cent in 2019.
• The gender employment gap is smallest for primary-educated individuals, at 5.5 per cent, and this group experiences the highest employment rates.
Image: SCREENGRAB
As women celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8, issues of gender pay gap have grown louder with experts weighing in on the matter.
The United Nations has designated the year 2024's theme as 'Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress' with a focus on addressing economic disempowerment, while the campaign theme for this year is 'Inspire Inclusion'.
According to the UN Women, despite progress in women’s economic and political participation, formal employment and education attainment, a gender pay gap remains a pervasive labour-market feature globally.
The UN says on a global scale, women earn only 73 cents for every Sh150 earned by men.
The gender gap is more frequently connected with higher levels of poverty among women.
Kenya successfully reduced poverty rates from 36.5 per cent in 2005 to 27.2 per cent in 2019.
The UN body indicated that one in every 10 women in the world lives in extreme poverty and that climate change is accelerating poverty gaps.
“As competition for scarce resources intensifies, livelihoods are threatened, societies become more polarised and women bear an increasingly heavy burden,” UN Women said.
Gerardine Mukeshimana, Vice President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) said investing in women means investing in sustainable development.
"The return on investment isn't just being able to beat poverty and inequality but building stronger institutions, economies and entire communities,” Mukeshimana said.
However, poverty rates went up to 36.1 per cent in 2021, after the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Addressing the gender pay gap can contribute to poverty reduction. Moreover, women’s pay being lower than men’s during their working years translates into women’s incomes from social security,” UN Women's Economic Empowerment Regional Policy Specialist Mehjabeen Alarakhia said.
Alarakhia was speaking during a UN Women meeting that took place in Nairobi.
What is Gender Pay Gap and how can women manoeuvre through it?
Pew Research defines gender pay gap as the difference between the earnings of men and women.
There is no single explanation why progress towards narrowing gender pay gap has stalled in the 21st century despite efforts from the Kenyan government.
Image: UN WOMEN
“Women generally begin their careers closer to wage parity with men, but they lose ground as they age and progress through their work lives, a pattern that has remained consistent over time,” Pew Research indicated.
The pay gap persists even though women are more likely than men to have graduated from college.
According to a 2023 UN Women report, understanding the gender pay gap and its determinants would raise awareness among employees, employers and policymakers.
This will then lead to actions for the mitigation of economic inequalities, support women in realising their productive potential and ultimately support economic empowerment.
Employment rate in Kenya is 65.3 per cent for individuals aged 15–64 years.
The gender employment gap is smallest for the youth age group, at only 5.3 per cent.
In terms of education attainment, the gender employment gap is smallest for primary-educated individuals, at 5.5%, and this group experiences the highest employment rates.
What causes the Gender pay Gap
According to International Labour Organization, under-representation in leadership is one of the major causes of gender pay gap.
Far fewer women than men are in management and leadership positions, especially at higher levels.
When women are managers, they tend to be more concentrated in management support functions such as human resources and financial administration than in more strategic roles, the organisation noted.
This brings down the average salary of female managers compared to that of male managers.
Former Industrialisation CS Betty Maina noted that for Kenya to bridge this gap, women have to fight for their space.
Maina who was addressing a group of over 60 women in Karen on March 8, said building strong professional networks is a step forward towards empowering the girl child.
“We are terrible at selling ourselves, we sit and wait for our team leaders to see our capabilities. But we need to speak up and communicate. When deserving, talk about your performance during appraisals,” she said.
Working hours
The gender pay gap is often a consequence of the different patterns of workforce engagement by women and men.
In the Global wage report 2018-19: What lies behind the gender pay gaps, the ILO highlights that women work on part-time basis more than men do in all but five of the 73 countries where data is available.
This is often linked to women taking on more of the unpaid family responsibilities.
UN Women report on Kenya highlights that women work shorter hours than men in paid work.
“This is because women invest more time in unpaid care activities, hence reducing the time they have available for paid working hours. In addition to this, hours worked are analysed by sector and occupation,” the report reads.
According to the report, the unadjusted gender pay gaps in Kenya are 31.1 per cent at the monthly level and 17.7 per cent at the hourly level, highlighting differences in working hours.
“These unadjusted gender pay gaps are seen across all educational levels, being widest among primary-educated individuals but close to zero for tertiary-educated individuals,” the report adds.
Policy Specialist Mehjabeen Alarakhia said women spend 16.4 billion hours on unpaid domestic work.
This, she said, is the women who are outside the labour market, which is equal to two billion full time jobs.
“We need to invest in these women and in the work they do on a daily,” she said, adding that these unpaid jobs include household production, volunteer and community work.
“This is also about rural work such as fetching water, firewood, process for self consumption,” Alarakhia noted.
Time out of the workforce
ILO says women more than men are likely to take career breaks from their employment in order to raise children or care for the older or ill members of the family.
This means that when they return to work, they are likely to have fallen behind in advancement and in remuneration.
In many countries, the issue of part-time work and career breaks may not arise as domestic workers and extended family help are readily available.
Alarakhia says women spend four times more on unpaid care work than men.
“When you combine the unpaid and paid, the day of a woman is longer than that of a man. Those women who have children will wake up early and prepare the children and still sleep late,” she said.
Alarakhia said everyone should play a part to achieve the SDG target 5. The SDG seeks to 'Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls'.
"The government should create a caring economy through workplace regulations,” she said.
The UN specialist said the care should be extended to decent work, equal pay and regulated working hours
“Where the economy cares about the people, do you allow people to take care of the lives? Does the employers prioritise care responsibilities and flexible working hours?,” she posed.
Education
ILO states that women still lag behind men in Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) areas that are associated with higher paid jobs.
"Even when women are qualified in STEM subjects, it can be challenging for them to obtain and maintain a job in these areas because they are traditionally male dominated," ILO notes.
Recommendations
The UN Women report recommends closing the gender pay gap and addressing other labour-market inequalities as important for improving women’s socioeconomic position and achieving social justice for more than half of the world’s population.
“The Kenyan government could strengthen existing legislation to ensure that women and men are entitled to equal remuneration for work of equal value,” the report notes.
This includes effectively enforcing measures such as transparency in the recruitment process, for example by disallowing the collection of personal information while hiring, prohibiting pay discrimination based on gender and promoting pay equity by making pay scales publicly available in the public and private sectors.
They also recommended that employers should promote transparency in pay structures within organisations, ensuring that salary ranges, pay scales and benefits are clearly defined and communicated.
“Accessible and responsive complaint mechanisms could also be put in place, so that violations of the law or company policies and any discrimination can be reported,” the report says.