Women and platform livelihoods in Kenya: The impact of COVID-19
Guest post by Nasubo Ongoma, Qhala Limited, email: nasubo.ongoma@qhala.com
“Digital channels are actually the lifesaver when it comes to these challenges females face.”
- Lizzie, 24, freelancer and research participant
We are starting a new research project — and we’d like you to join us on the journey. Over the course of 2021, Qhala and Caribou Digital, with the support of the Mastercard Foundation, will work to understand the impact of COVID-19 on young women’s experiences working or selling through online platforms in Kenya.
Why this research now?
There is growing conversation on how platformization (broadly, the use of digital technologies to get work or sell) has increased access to work and markets for young women. Despite consistent calls for gender equity and narrowing the gender gap worldwide, in many emerging markets, such as Kenya, there is much more to learn about how platforms impact women’s lives, especially during and after COVID-19.
COVID-19 deprived people of sources of income and led to the closure of businesses, vending sites, and marketplaces, and women were among the worst affected. The pandemic and its effects on livelihoods emerge in the context of global findings by ILO that a majority of workers on digital labor platforms are highly educated and male. How can women compete in this economic sphere dominated and enabled by men? Understanding the experience of platform livelihoods from women’s perspective is key to identifying the enablers, barriers, opportunities, and challenges for women as they strive to get platform work during and after the pandemic.
This research builds on Qhala and Caribou Digital’s previous work on Platform Livelihoods, which explores the effect of “platformatization” on different livelihoods for Kenyan youth. Through an extensive literature review, Platform Livelihoods describes in detail the experiences of youth workers in farming, creative sectors, logistics (motorcycle drivers), and small businesses. (The full report is in publication; frameworks and the gender-specific literature review can be found here). Through interviews with workers, the differences between male and female youth economic opportunities and participation became clear. This includes access (access to capital, freedom of movement, devices, and safety), flexibility (juggling productive and reproductive roles and responsibilities for women), earnings (reflecting a difference in how skills are valued their skill is based on gender) and professionalism (societal perception about what kinds of jobs or roles women and men are best suited for). Milly is an onion farmer in Kajiado County. Her quote below illustrates the complexity of female Kenyan gig worker experiences:
“Yes of course there is always that — a little bit of male chauvinism around. I won’t lie. There is a lot of sexism that is around. But there is also the advantage of the fact that you are a woman that people will easily believe you or trust in you. You know? So you look at it in both ways. It’s an advantage sometimes and sometimes a disadvantage. Yeah. But I think it has worked for me rather than it has worked against me.” — Milly, 26, Farmer, (Platform Livelihoods, report in production)
Women participants (especially in the creative sectors) mentioned that there is sexism. For example, in the music and artistic industries, women face the expectation to sell their products cheaper than men or face harassment:
“There are people who are going to take advantage of you. They come to you with other intentions, not businesswise.” — Lynn, 25, Visual Artist (Platform Livelihoods, report in production)
The gig sector is known for its flexibility and earning potential. However, with stiff competition emerging in the platform economy, will women be able to thrive and succeed in this sector, in terms of earnings and finding opportunities? Further, women were disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Some were out of work. Others considered a career change and ventured into the platform economy. Understanding women’s economic participation experiences in the gig economy is thus necessary to generate evidence to describe the enablers and barriers including coping mechanisms, and then inform gender policy and program considerations to improve livelihoods through platformatization.
About the research
The questions we will ask in our gender-focused Kenya research will be informed by our initial global findings and gender, work, and platformatization. From the Platform Livelihoods literature review, sectoral reports on ride-hailing platforms outline notable differences in wages, attributed to experience on the platform, driving experience, choice of where to work and live, as well as safety issues as they carry out the work. There are also notable differences for women freelancers when bidding for work. Foong et al. (2018) found that women bid less than men and as a result have to bid for more work to compensate for this disparity in earnings.
Although women dominate the trade and services sectors, female gig workers allude to the skewed power dynamics that privilege clients over workers. (It is worth noting that men may also experience the same, and some platform economy critics point out that we talk more about women and platforms than men and platforms). These sectors are also heavily dependent on ratings; many young women report wanting more bargaining power in terms of the jobs they bid for, time put in the work, and the quality of work.
“Let’s say I have been booked for five hours [. . .]. It will be a big house that does not even tally with those five hours [. . .] but the client expects me to finish that job, so I am forced to add hours [. . .]. The client will be putting pressure on me to work fast, but if I work fast, I will get a bad rating attributed to not cleaning properly as the job was rushed. There is a serious problem there.” — Faheema, FGD participant, Cape Town (Hunt et al., 2019)
A gender analysis of the platform economy is therefore timely to assess the enabling factors of and barriers to economic participation by young women in Kenya, especially in the informal sector. Notably, women’s involvement in the informal sector has been increasing, particularly in the platform economy, given its potential for women’s economic opportunities and participation for empowerment. By articulating the supports, barriers, and risks associated with the platform economy, this study will provide key learnings and understanding to address inequalities that may challenge young women’s economic participation. This study will begin in Kenya, followed by complementary research in Ghana (with the University of Ghana) and Nigeria (with Lagos Business School and Value for Women). The sample population is young women aged 18–35 years from rural and urban Kenya working on the gig/ platform economy (with parallel populations in Ghana and Nigeria).
Young women turn to digital platforms in Kenya
Digital platforms encompass social media too. With a rapidly expanding youth population and limited opportunities for formal employment, Kenya’s workforce is shifting towards the informal sector which offers endless economic opportunities. The informal sector in Kenya has grown exponentially in the last two decades and presents innumerable opportunities for youth and women. For example, in several African countries the employment contribution of the informal sector is estimated at approximately 80% for non-agricultural jobs.
Within the informal sector, women account for a disproportionate percentage of workers from street vendors, to domestic workers, subsistence farmers, and seasonal agricultural workers. These economic opportunities are often labor intensive, low-income, short-term unsecured work characterized by informality without proper structures and guidelines for operations. However, what we have seen in Kenya is that while digital companies have tried their hand in these sectors due to the abundance of workers, many initiatives for “platformatizing” informal work have not taken off due to the reliance of a trust based system, where clients prefer referrals from their closed networks/circles. For example, domestic help is more likely to be sought through a friend in a one-on-one message or closed WhatsApp group than contracted through a platform.
Beyond this, however, other types of work are thriving online. Platforms are capitalizing on the economic potential of the informal sector to create marketplaces for buyers and sellers, or clients and independent contractors. As we begin interviews, three primary topics are of interest: COVID-19 and its effects, the influence of offline gender norms, and policy regulations in Kenya.
The effect of COVID-19
“It affected us because most of our clients were employed through some offices so the offices when they closed, we lost some clients, we had some losses.” — Pauline, 21, MSE (Food Vendor)
Unfortunately, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic informal sector economic opportunities easily available for youth and women in Kenya were the worst hit as containment measures and health directives such as social distancing, restricted movement, and lockdown brought businesses to an impromptu standstill, with some eventually shutting down.
COVID-19 exacerbated pre-existing problems, especially for women, most of whom lost jobs or business and could no longer work for pay after COVID-19. There was also an increased burden of work, including unpaid care and domestic work.
This left workers on their own. Some report cutting back on non-food items and reducing their number of meals to cope with decreased income. The number of domestic violence cases attributed to COVID-19 increased. Some sectors, on the other hand, found new success with an upsurge of demand, for instance, deliveries, food industry, pharmaceutical corporations, cleaning companies, and online work.
Offline gender patterns
Social norms and perceived women’s roles still limit women’s engagement in the platform economy. In the previous Platform Livelihoods study (study to be published), each of the four sectors displayed long-standing dynamics. For instance, in logistics, female drivers are scarce and are seen as courageous for taking up the job.
“[People tell me] Madam, congrats. You are doing work that even most men can’t do.” — Brenda, 29, Motorcycle Rider
However, it does seem to be the case that young Kenyan women are successfully navigating social commerce and even social agriculture (using social media platforms to buy and sell produce). This demonstrates that there may be new barriers to be confronted, challenged, or changed. Women are faced with formal and informal structural barriers manifested in the perceptions of the work they do. For instance, societal bias to what work is decent: if educated e.g with certain academic qualifications, family may not understand why a worker is doing that work as opposed to looking for more formal employment or working during late hours for married women may be shunned. It is key to understand the role of actors who may enable or hinder women’s growth and development. These could be peers, spouses, and sometimes family members like parents or siblings.
While women engage in the informal sector that is labor intensive and time-consuming, women still have to fulfill their traditional roles which then means they have a triple burden of work. Women’s workload often includes the unmeasured, unpaid domestic work demanded by their reproductive and productive roles. Further, the informal arrangements in informal sector operations subsequently limit women from fully accessing benefits and entitlements of labor engagement. For instance, working without clear human resource laws that govern the workers time, level of engagement, working conditions and negotiated pay.
According to Kenya’s gender mobile access outlook, over 82% of women own a mobile phone, but only 28% of these have access to mobile internet. Furthermore, women are significantly disadvantaged in accessing credit, land, or financial products, which prevents opportunities for them to start a company or make a living by managing assets.
Taxation, women, and platform work in Kenya
In 2020, the Kenyan government launched COVID-focused fiscal, monetary, and social insurance policies to moderate the impact of COVID-19, such as tax exemptions. However, these policies hardly benefit those in the informal sector, where a large percentage of young women work. Additionally, for increased revenue collection, the government is now targeting emerging e-commerce, which includes online business for tax returns, yet more young Kenyan women are increasingly turning to this sector for work. Empirically, when taxation is linked to labor supply, women’s labor supply compared to that of men is more responsive to their after-tax wage. With a reduction of taxes, the participation of women increases. The government tax on e-commerce coupled with the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic effects portend serious economic, social, and security consequences for young women.
These barriers in the informal sector notwithstanding, young women continue to strive to source incomes from available opportunities. For those who can access and navigate digital technologies, online platforms present new business lines and shifts in livelihoods, especially in the gig economy, namely: platform work, small and medium enterprise, logistics, farming, and creatives.
There could be a reprieve for Kenyans on the digital tax with a proposed 2021 finance bill that will instead tax only non-residents or foreigners as opposed to local businesses. However, in foreign platforms this cost is passed down to users, and will impact overall earnings of anyone working online. For instance, UpWork will add the Digital Service Tax on services provided through their platform, and AWS (Amazon Web Services) will pass those extra costs to platform providers.
The upcoming research process
As more women join the platform economy, they will have to overcome pre-existing barriers to participation, including offline gender patterns, new policies that make it harder to do business, and the effects of the pandemic on earnings and employment. From this study, then, there is a need to further explore and detail the gender dynamics in the platform economy. Qhala is thus setting out to upscale from the initial 2020 study and conduct in-depth research to provide detailed insights into gender and platform work in Kenya. The study is anchored in Cornwall’s women’s empowerment framework, which calls for cutting away the tangle of assumptions and stereotypes that fill the field of gender and development.
The study will project the voices and unique perspectives of young women as actors in the platform economy to articulate the nuanced barriers and enablers including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings will also facilitate mapping of the context and provide gender perspectives in the gig economy when regarded as a sector that has potential for increasing young women’s economic opportunities and participation to contribute to the realization of empowerment and sustainable livelihoods.
The study will adopt a mixed method research design including:
- Flash conversations via closed social media groups where women work in the platform economy. Women discuss issues they face getting work or selling on online platforms. This is a key methodology, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic where women are turning to online groups for support.
- In-depth interviews and focus group discussions with female gig workers with select male partners to understand the experiences of women workers and actors responsible in shaping their work experience.
- Participatory video storytelling to dig deeper into the lived experiences of select female workers by giving them the tools (a phone, video training, and mentoring) to tell their story. See our previous participatory video storytelling work here.
We would welcome any feedback, from useful literature you think we should consult to methods we might have missed. Please join us on this journey and follow us on Twitter on @cariboudigital and @QhalaHQ, and here on Medium @cariboudigital.
