2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census “Counting Our People for Implementation of Vision 2030” Volume X Labour Dynamics

Abstract

Labour dynamics is one of the important sources of data for assessing the role of the population of a country in the economic and social development process. The broad objective of statistics on the labour force is for measurement of the relationship between employment and other social and economic characteristics of the economically active population for the purpose of formulating and monitoring employment policies and programmes, income-generating and maintenance schemes, vocational training and other similar programs. It provides data on the main characteristics of the workforce engaged or available to be engaged in productive activities during a given period and its distribution in various sectors of the economy. The analysis of the Census data for this monograph is based on the labour force framework adopted by the 13th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (1982) which categorizes the total population into the currently economically active population (labour force) and economically inactive population. Three questions in the 2009 Census sought information on the economic activity status of the population which, through cross tabulation with basic demographic features of the population, has enabled classification of the population into the economically active and the inactive populations. The lower age limit in coverage of this population was set at 5 in order to capture data on working children and there was no upper age limit in order to capture the working older population.