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

Abstract

This study intends to study the factors causing gender disparity in executive positions in KCG. To achieve this, the study will be guided by two objectives which include; establishing how political factors affect gender disparity at KCG and investigating ways in which regional balance affect recruitment of various genders of executive officers at KCG. The theory was hinged on the Social Gender Theory and Structural Functional theory. The case study research design was adopted. The study targeted staff who entailed the 119-top echelon of staff in the County. The sample size to be studied is census of 119 respondents who make up 100% of the target population for efficient questionnaire administration. Primary data was collected using one structured questionnaire. Primary data collected from the field was captured from the filled questionnaires, 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 entails 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 Kisii County 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 whom you know politically. The study further found that the gender disparity of work is given by chance and men have to give a convincing demonstration of incompetency to be actually judged incompetent. The study recommended that political factors should be embraced with appointment policies of executive officers in recruitment of county government. The study also recommended that there is need to embrace on the communal beliefs and social constructs that women cannot lead in leadership positions more likely to be hired when they have applied through computerized application process.