Effects of Women Participation on the Socio-Economic Status of Households

ABSTRACT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am greatly thankful to Egerton University’s Faculty of education and community studies, Department of applied community studies for giving me a chance to integrate the knowledge learned into practice. This study has been an eye-opener towards understanding practical issues that face the society.

I am also sincerely thankful to my lecturer, Mr. Sutter, for his immense assistance and guidance without which this study would have been a success.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Background to the study

According to Bezabin Tolosa (2007), one of the most essential features of development is the transformation of community which embraces socio-economic progress ranging from improved income levels, improved levels of education and better health status of the households. Changes associated with development provide communities as well as individual households with more control and influence over their own destiny. Hence the development strategy that has been adopted by the government, Non-governmental organizations and communities to bring about sustainable affirmative change and to facilitate the transformation of the society, is the women Self-help groups.

Experiences from various development attempts that have been made to minimize the effects of poverty so far has demonstrated that there are efforts to change the miserable life condition of many poor people in many parts of the globe but it is not easy to occur. In developing nations like Kenya, many development strategies experimented through various development agents have not yielded the desired results (Bezabin Tolosa 2007). However, it is evident that few countries have benefited from such development efforts and have succeeded in rapid economic growth and poverty alleviation.

Evidence from developing countries show that improvement in women’s education, health, employment opportunities and social participation contributes to economic growth in developing economies....