dc.contributor.author | Muyumbu, Linda N | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2013-05-24T07:12:39Z | |
dc.date.available | 2013-05-24T07:12:39Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2001 | |
dc.identifier.citation | A research project submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Masters of Arts in Population Studies | en |
dc.identifier.uri | http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/25143 | |
dc.description.abstract | The past two decades have witnessed notable advances in studies seeking to illuminate potential
connections between women's roles and demographic phenomena Whereas in more developed
countries, an inverse relationship is most often observed between women's productive and
reproductive activities, in less industrialized countries the relationship is not clear
This study used data from the Nairobi Urban 1ntegration Project to examine the relationship
between women's labour force participation and fertility in Nairobi Specifically, the study
examined the extent to which labour force participation influences fertility and the extent to
which participation in the formal/ informal sector influences fertility. The study was based on a
sub sample of 864 women covering three generations aged 25-54 from whom retrospective data
on birth and employment histories were collected. The analysis was based on an additive model
used by Mason (1981) but with modification to suit the variables of interest Descriptive
"'., ...
statistics were used to show the distribution of observation periods and a summary of survival
data showed that 417 of the women had experienced a birth at end of the reference period with
50% having at least one birth. The main method of data analysis was event history analysis.
Specifically, Cox's proportional Hazards model was used to establish the effect of several
co-variates on the hazard rate of getting a next child -during the observation period The risk
involves multiple failures since childbearing is a repeated event. It was important to restrict the
analysis to women who had continuously lived in Nairobi from the age of fifteen since social and
demographic analyses ignore the effects of time and space relationships.
The study provides evidence of a relationship between women's labour force participation and
fertility in airobi. The most important finding is that the relationship is only clear when the
settings in which the work is done is considered. This finding indicates that both the employment
status and the type of economic sector in which the work is done may have some impact on the
extent to which work affects childbearing The study found no fertility differentials between
employed and unemployed women despite unemployment reducing the relative risk of getting an
additional child. But this observation did not persist when the type of employment sector was
considered. At this stage there were significant fertility differentials between employed and
unemployed women. Of special interest is the finding that women in the informal sector were
less likely to get an additional than those in the formal sector. The observed effects are
inconsistent with the role incompatibility theory, but indicate that working conditions in the
informal sector in Nairobi may not be compatible with childbearing and child rearing as
hypothesized. It could also reflect the current problem of unemployment that has forced people
with training suited to the formal sector to enter the informal sector. The exact mechanism of this
observed effects were not very clear. There were no fertilitY'diffe;:e;tials between homemakers
and employed women in Nairobi but the exact mechanism was not clear. Availability of paid
childcare was found to increase the relative risk of getting an additional child, which could be
due to the fact that where childcare substitutes are available and considered acceptable women
do not feel pressured by time constraints to limit their fertility.
This study may have been limited but it has far reaching implications for policy makers It
suggests that policies be put in place to promote women's labourforce participation especially in
the informal sector since work in this sector has the greatest impact on the rate at which women | en |
dc.language.iso | en | en |
dc.title | Womens labour force participation and fertility in Nairobi | en |
dc.type | Thesis | en |
local.publisher | Department of Population Studies & Research Institute, University of Nairobi | en |