In his Madaraka Day speech on June 1, 2022, President Uhuru Kenyatta raised alarm on many issues affecting Kenya, among them was the rise in single-parent households in the country.
Highlighting the matter, he said;
“Equally important to highlight is the threat to our traditional values and the family as the basic unit of our Society. The evolving face of the Kenyan family is characterized in the 2019 national census where families headed by single parents rose from 25.1% in 2009 to 38.2% in 2019.”
Piga Firimbi found that the data cited is inconclusive. The 25.1 percent stated is in the KNBS ‘Analytical Report On Household and Family Dynamics’ drawn from the 2009 population census. The report presents the cited data as figures for “adult female heads of households”. See screengrab below.
Similarly, the 38.2 percent President Kenyatta pointed out is a representation of what is presented as “‘female-headed households” in the KNBS ‘Analytical Report on Household and Family Dynamics’ based on the 2019 national census. See screengrab below.
Both datasets quoted in the president’s speech are gender-specific and solely feature under the women-led households category, hence excluding male single parents and assuming that all female-led households have a single parent.
The 2009 and 2019 census reports do not contain a general figure for households led by single parents. The data presented by President Uhuru Kenyatta is therefore MISLEADING.
On the other hand, data on children’s living arrangements as stated in the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) 2014 indicates that:
“For 22% of children, both parents are alive but their father is living elsewhere and 10% of children are not living with either parent although both are alive.”
The report highlights that children’s living arrangements often affect their well-being. It adds that children growing up in urban areas are more likely to live with both parents while those in rural areas are often in single-parent households. Nairobi is seen to be the area with the highest number of households where children grow up with both biological parents.
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