Occupational segregation in the Employment sector: a case study of Nairobi. Kenya

Abstract

Gender equality has been a contentious issue in Africa and more so in Kenya for a long time. Women have been disadvantaged in taking up positions equal to those of men in society due to a variety of factors including lower educational level, family responsibilities and gender specific roles and discrimination. Our society has constantly discriminated women in taking up specific roles traditionally set aside for males making these particular professions gender stereotyped. Other occupations are seen as encompassing the nature of females and thus become female oriented. The girl child has for a long time had to leave her schooling to attend to marital duties as expected by society and family. Parents have married off their young daughters as a source of wealth thus finding investment into their education a waste of money. However, with recent attention on the girl child's development in education and an increase in the fight for gender equality, there could have arisen a change in the occupational structure ignoring the traditionally st.~reotyped occupations for either gender. This work examines the possible changes in the occupational structure with regard to traditionally stereotyped occupations. The first chapter is a general introduction giving background information, aims and objectives of the study. The second chapter basically examines the different theoretical approaches towards gender specific occupations and a review of results from previous studies carried out in occupational segregation in different regions. The third chapter describes the methodology of the study while the fourth and fifth discuss the results of the study and makes recommendations 8