INCOME INEQUALITY IN KENYA.
8.300 that is the gap between the richest and poor in Kenya. Less than 0.1% of the population (8,300 people) own more wealth than the bottom 99.9% (more than 44 million people). The richest 10% of people in Kenya earned on average 23 times more than the poorest 10%. This can be censured on a number of factors depending on where one is sitting. The 0.1% of the population either attended the best schools in the land or have had access to generational wealth. Inequality is the degree to which distribution of economic welfare generated in an economy differs from that of equal shares among its inhabitants. Income Inequality is observed not only in monetary lenses but also in terms of social exclusion and the ability or inability to access social services and socio-political rights by different population groups, genders and even races. The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality or wealth inequality within a nation or any other group of people.
ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE.
Income inequality exponentially provides a disparity in all areas of life. It affects infant, maternal and primary healthcare. Access to quality education, income opportunities and a person’s social status in the community is also affected. The mortality rate can be a general indicator of the overall health situation in a region or country. Both infant and mortality rates are lower among the wealthy groups and higher for poorer ones. This means that the poorest 20% in Kenya loose 149 children before their fifth birthday, in every 1000 live births, as compared to only 91 for the richest 20%.
ACCESS TO WATER.
Water is a basic commodity for life. One that in an ideal situation should be accessible to all. Water also determines one’s wealth status. In Kenya, access to water improves with increasing income. There are remarkable differences between wealth groups in Kenya in terms of access to safe drinking water. The richer segments of the population in Kenya has comparatively better access to water than the poor segments.
ACCESS TO LAND.
Land is an important resource in Kenya. It is also a source of inequality. The table below can be seen that there is a wide discrepancy in the share of high and low potential land. While 97% of land in Nyanza province is classified as high potential none of the land in North Eastern as all of it is classified as low potential
Income inequality trickles down to the county and further down to the sub-county levels. Different counties are allocated different amounts of money annually by the treasury. These funds are either utilised or embezzled by the individuals involved. Counties like Turkana and Garissa have a higher number of poor people compared to countries in the central region.
This would not have been complete if gender inequality was not discussed. To answer this question data from the Integrated Labour Force Survey, 1999 was grouped according to the gender of the household head and the distribution of income assessed for each group. The resulting income decile for each group is shown in the table below. The lowest deciles for the male-headed household accounted for 15% of total income while that of the female-headed accounted for only 8%. The corresponding figures for the highest deciles are 4% for the male-headed household and 12% for the female-headed households. It is significant that among the male-headed households, income tends to be concentrated in the lower deciles than is the case with female-headed households.
The notable features of Income inequality in Kenya.
1.Differences in unemployment between men and women.
For the age group 20–24 years, there are about 274,000 unemployed women in urban areas compared to about 73,000 in the case of men of the same age group.
2.Differences in income.
The 10% richest households in Kenya control more than 42% of all incomes while the poorest 0.76% of income. This means that while the top rich Kenyan earns 56 shillings, the bottom poor earns 1 shilling.
3.Differences in HIV/AIDs prevalence.
In Nyanza province 15% of the population is1 infected with the HIV/AIDs virus while the infection rate in North Eastern province is negligible, estimated at about 0%.
4.Differences in school enrolment.
Going by the enrolment rates, practically every child in Central province attends primary school compared to about one out of three children in North-Eastern go to school. For secondary school, the difference is even bigger.
Conclusion
There are obviously very high levels of inequality in Kenya but there is adequate segmentation in most parts of the country that very few individuals have neighbours in higher social classes. This limits upward mobility (the likelihood of being in a higher social class than your parents) which is a key trait of societies with increasing inequality. Consequently, the unequal society punishes the poor more for lacking the resources needed to bounce back from making the same mistakes everyone makes.
As the gap between the rich and the poor widens, most of us are likely to be found hanging on a lose thread. This is magnified by the fact that, if hit by a disaster we will all slip into the poverty pool. It starts with you and me.