- November 2, 2022
- Posted by: Dream_liner
- Category: October Newsletter
Preliminary findings of our study on the Gendered impact of travel restriction’s government policy response to covid-19 pandemic on the tourism industry in Kenya indicate that most of the tourism enterprises in Nairobi City were male owned. The same applies to employees in this sector. However, most of the volunteers in all the 6 years under study were females. This means that any disaster which affects the sector women will be hit most. The Corona virus a disaster which affected the whole world led to many negative effects in all economies.
With Covid-19 travel restrictions the pilot survey results showed that total female employees dropped from 42% in the year 2016 to 39% in the year 2021 while for male employees it increased from 58% in the year 2016 to 61% in the year 2021. The survey results suggest that women were most affected by COVID-19 as compared to male workers. The pilot survey results suggested that a higher percentage (69.4%) of women employees, in the tourism sector earn less than Ksh. 25,000 per month as compared to 64% male workers in the same category. During COVID-19, due to travel restrictions among other measures implemented by the government, the survey results indicated that 31% of the total female employees in the surveyed enterprises salaries were reduced as compared to 30% of male employees.
Additionally, findings indicate that 29% of the total female employees were put on unpaid leave as compared to 28% of the total male workers. With 28% of the enterprises having closed down because of travel restrictions, women were impacted most. The survey findings suggest that whenever there is a disaster woman suffer most due to loss of employment which is one of the major sources of income. This can lead to several other socioeconomic problems such as being pushed deeper into poverty, domestic violence, poor education, reduction in quality of life and health. You can read the detailed Pilot Report Here