Women working in Kenya earn 32 per cent less than their male counterparts, a new report by the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) indicates.
The report compiled in collaboration with Equileap — a firm that promotes gender equality in the workplace — showed that Kenya was performing dismally in bridging the pay gap compared to the global average of 23 per cent.
"Women worldwide still get paid 23 per cent less than men but, at the current rate of change, pay parity is unlikely to be achieved before 2069," Equileap chief executive Diana van Maasdijk said during the report release in Nairobi on Wednesday.
The gender pay gap is the difference between the average salary of all women and of all men in a company.
The report titled Gender Equality in Kenya; Assessing 61 Leading Companies on Workplace Equality evaluated firms on disclosure (whether they have published gender-segregated pay information), performance and possible strategies to close any such gaps.
Standard Chartered Kenya, WPP-Scangroup, Safaricom topped the gender equality ranking with a score of 63 per cent each followed closely by Barclays Bank of Kenya and Kenya Airways with 61 per cent and 50 per cent respectively.
But none of the 61 Kenyan companies in the study published any information on differences between the salaries of male and female employees.
NSE chief executive Geoffrey Odundo said gender equality in the workplace will play a key role in attracting impact investors.
Women in top positions
Of the 61 companies, only seven have a female CEO, namely BOC Kenya, British American Tobacco Kenya, DTB Kenya, Eveready East Africa, KenGen, Limuru Tea, and STANLIB Fahari I-REIT.
Twelve companies have a female chief financial officer, five of which are in the financial sector.
Only one company, STANLIB Fahari I-REIT has a female CEO, a female board chairperson and an all-female executive team.
Three companies of the 61 leading firms have a female chair: Eveready East Africa, STANLIB Fahari I-REIT and Unga Group.
Best parental leave
East African Breweries ranked 10th but it emerged the best for partental leave with the most generous programme for primary (26 weeks) and secondary carers (four weeks).
Safaricom was the best for providing a living wage, flexible working arrangements both in terms of schedules and locations and is a signatory to the WEP.
WPP Scangroup has gender balance at three out of four organisational levels with an executive leadership that is 40 per cent women, senior management with 45 per cent women and total workforce that is 46 per cent female.
