Determinants of Gender Disparities in the Recruitment of Executive Officers: A Case of Kisii County Government, Kenya.

Abstract

This research studied the factors causing gender disparity in executive positions in KCG. To achieve this, the study was guided by four objectives which include; establishing how political factors, regional balance, social-cultural factors and education influence the recruitment process of executive officers in KCG. The theory was hinged on the Equity Theory, Feminist Theory, Social Gender Theory, Structural Functional theory and Social Cognitive theory. The case study research design was adopted. The study targeted staff that entailed the 119-top echelon of staff in the County. The research conducted a census where all the 119 executives were considered. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires. Data was cleaned, coded with unique numbers, entered into the Microsoft excel worksheets and transferred to the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program. After data cleaning which entailed checking for errors in entry, descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, mean score and standard deviation was estimated for all the quantitative variables. The qualitative data from the open-ended questions was analyzed using conceptual content analysis to analyze the secondary data collected from KCG annual reports, the Kisii County Integrated Development Plan 2013-2017, the Kisii County Website, books, journals, magazines and media reports and presented in prose. Inferential data analysis was done using Pearson moment correlation and multiple regression analysis. The information was presented in tables. The study found that there is discrimination in terms of gender recruitment since it depends on political factors. The study further found that the gender Job imbalance occurs by accident and men have to give a convincing demonstration of incompetency to be actually judged incompetent. The studies also found that, quite a number of women apply for executive posts so that selection can be easier. The study concluded that regional balance had the greatest effect on the gender disparities in the recruitment of executive officers in KCG, followed by education then political factors while social-cultural factors had the least effect to the gender disparities in the recruitment of executive officers in KCG. The study recommended that political factors should be embraced with appointment policies of executive officers in recruitment. Further, there is need to embrace cultural beliefs and social constructs that women cannot lead in leadership positions and that they are more likely to be hired when they have applied through computerized application process. The study recommends that a similar study should be done but in different county in order to compare the findings. The study also recommends that another study to be conducted that focuses on different factors other than the ones tackled in the current study. Thus, future studies should be conducted to examine the effect of recruitment of executive officers on performance of counties in Kenya.