Household Characteristics, Unpaid Care and Domestic Work in Kenya

In labour economics, unpaid care and domestic work have long been recognised as a crucial, though undervalued, component of total economic activity. The burden of unpaid care and domestic work disproportionately falls on women and girls in many societies, including Kenya. While existing studies consistently show that women shoulder the largest share of unpaid care work, limited empirical attention has been given to how household head demographics and socio-economic characteristics shape this burden in Kenya, particularly using nationally representative data. To address this gap, this study examines the burden of unpaid care and domestic work in Kenya using nationally representative data from the 2021 Kenya Time Use Survey, which contains detailed time-use information for over 24,000 individuals aged 15 years and above across all 47 counties. The study hypothesised a significant effect of the household head’s demographic and socio-economic characteristics on time spent on unpaid care and domestic work. Patterns and determinants of unpaid care work are analysed using descriptive statistics and econometric methods. Given the count nature of time-use data and the presence of overdispersion and excess zero observations, a Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial model is adopted. The use of this approach is verified by diagnostic tests: mean-variance tests, likelihood ratio tests, and the Vuong test prove the ineffectiveness of Poisson and quasi-Poisson models. The results revealed that female-headed households have a considerably greater burden of unpaid care and domestic labour than male-headed households. Urban residence is linked to a significant decline in unpaid care and domestic work, an indicator of improved access to infrastructure, services, and labour-saving technologies. Marital status is also important, as households with unmarried people have much less unpaid care burden. Contrary to expectations, education, paid working hours, and income do not significantly reduce the intensity of unpaid care work after accounting for the effects of zero inflation. Generally, the findings point to gender and spatial disparities in unpaid care work in Kenya and the need for gender-sensitive policies, rural infrastructure development, and greater recognition of unpaid care work in national development planning.