Women and girls in Kenya often have more care responsibilities than men at work and home. As women are typically expected to be the primary caregivers, looking after a child takes up around 20 per cent of their time.

Women are expected to prioritize care work over paid work, education, and other opportunities, which limits their autonomy, opportunities to succeed and traps them in poverty.

This inequality is due primarily to traditional ideas about men's and women's roles, suggesting that women's work, whether paid or unpaid, is less critical and requires less skill than men's. These ideas contribute to the disproportionate burden of unpaid care and domestic work on women, limiting their ability to participate in decision-making processes and negotiate a more equitable distribution of unpaid care and domestic work within households.

When they enter the labour market, women are often relegated to more vulnerable occupations, including employment in the informal economy, particularly domestic work.

Kenya has approximately two million domestic workers, with women constituting about 80 per cent of this workforce.

Domestic and paid care work continues to be undervalued and invisible, with many women, girls, migrants, and vulnerable people experiencing discrimination. Although Kenya has made significant progress regarding expanding labour rights through legislative and statutory regulations, rights and regulations for domestic and paid care workers are yet to be fully enforced.

For Kenya to achieve inclusive and sustainable development, it needs to invest in advancing gender equality and recognizing and valuing women's contributions to the country's economy and society.