Kenya’s latest economic analysis paints a grim but sadly familiar picture: for the fifth consecutive year, real wages have fallen, and the few new jobs being created are almost entirely in the informal economy.
Behind these statistics lies a deepening human rights crisis, the burden of which is unevenly distributed across gender, class, and care responsibilities.
When average real pay decreases from Sh62,256 in 2020 to Sh55,451 in 2024, this isn’t merely a distant macro indicator, it directly impacts access to rights-based essentials like food, shelter, healthcare, and dignity.
This decline significantly affects women in lower‑ and middle‑income households, as the unpaid tasks associated with social reproduction, such as cooking, fetching water, nursing the sick, and providing emotional support for children, are largely performed by women.
As a result, every shilling lost in real wages translates into extended hours of unpaid labour.
Families with limited financial resources, already spending a disproportionate amount on food and transportation, are compelled to make difficult choices: withdrawing girls from school to save on tuition, delaying critical healthcare appointments, or juggling multiple jobs, which undermine their rest and safety.
Therefore, the reduction in real income exacerbates both the gender pay gap and the disparity in time use, perpetuating a cycle of economic instability and personal vulnerability.
The collapse in formal‑sector hiring only intensifies these pressures. Only 75,000 formal positions were created in 2024, compared with 122,900 the year before.
For young Kenyans, particularly female graduates, this results in diminished access to employment opportunities that provide maternity cover, contributory pensions, or collective bargaining frameworks, as they contend with discriminatory recruitment practices.
Instead, 90 percent of last year’s new employment emerged in the informal economy, where statutory minimum wages, sexual harassment safeguards, and paid leave are often absent.
Under Article 43 of the Constitution, the State’s commitment to secure the right to economic and social rights thus rings hollow for millions whose only prospects are precarious gig work or underpaid care work.
How did we arrive at this point? A progressive political-economy outlook emphasises three interrelated aspects. First, debt-induced fiscal consolidation has diminished public investment and exerted pressure on public-sector wage expenditures.
Due to escalating interest payments and austerity measures advised by the International Monetary Fund, social expenditure has been curtailed to appease creditors.
Secondly, the government has imposed new payroll levies, including the housing tax, social health insurance premium, and increased National Social Security Fund deductions, on stagnant nominal wages, effectively shifting the burden of adjustment onto workers.
Third, global shocks like climate-induced floods and supply chain disruptions clash with an export-focused growth model favouring commodity profits at the expense of domestic food security.
Women smallholder farmers have their crops washed away, while multinational agribusinesses benefit from tax breaks. These decisions, combined with regressive consumption taxes, reinforce colonial patterns of extraction and shift the burden of risk onto labouring individuals, especially women, who subsidise the economy through unpaid and underpaid care.
A proactive, rights-based, feminist economic reform is essential to properly navigate this cul-de-sac, rather than merely enacting gradual technocratic adjustments.
First, Kenya must establish a living wage indexed to inflation, ensuring its implementation across all sectors, including informal employment, through tripartite agreements and increased labour inspection financing.
Second, fiscal priorities should shift to stop non-essential debt repayments while seeking comprehensive debt relief; the resources released in this process should contribute to creating a universal social protection floor encompassing childcare grants, unemployment insurance, and pensions for marginalised groups.
Third, gender-responsive budgeting needs to be integrated into the core operations of the Treasury: every shilling of public revenue generated through genuinely progressive measures, such as wealth, capital gains, and windfall taxes, should be assessed for its effect on paid and unpaid labour.
Essentially, caregiving should transition from being a private matter to a public investment priority.
Expanding public childcare centres, providing stipends for community health workers, and developing climate‑resilient water infrastructure would generate quality jobs, primarily for women, while also allowing them time to engage in education, public and political activities, or pursue less precarious, higher-paying employment.
The decline in real wages and formal employment is not merely a consequence of “market forces,” but rather the result of intentional policy frameworks that favour creditors over caregivers and prioritise capital over human rights.
A rights‑based agenda shifts the economic focus towards the reproduction of life, instead of just profit accumulation. This shift is not only morally essential but also economically viable: valuing and safeguarding women’s paid and unpaid labour leads to shared, sustainable, and equitable prosperity.
Ultimately, economic governance should be democratised: workers’ collectives, women’s rights organisations, and informal sector groups should be granted official representation in wage‑setting and macro‑policy discussions.
Their lived experiences shed light on the impact of fiscal policies on daily challenges, a viewpoint frequently overlooked in high-level economic policy discussions.
The writer is the Economic Justice and Rights Lead at African Women's Development and Communication Network
