The emergence of Artificial-Intelligence chatbots such as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) and virtual assistants is causing major shifts in the future of work.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers report estimates that more women will bear the brunt of these changes as AIs displace secretarial and administrative occupations. Gender disparities in the labour market are likely to worsen with the new developments in future work, which will undermine the achievement of Sustainable Development (SDG) Goal 5 – gender equality.

As more and more roles become automated or get displaced by AIs, what skills will be critical for young women to gain employment in the future? Women are overrepresented in roles that require advanced soft-skills . Skills such as empathy and collaboration are very difficult to recreate in Ais. This presents an opportunity for women’s work in the future.

Despite heavy investment and a long history of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions in Kenya, youth unemployment remains high, particularly among young women. Statistics from the International Labour Organization show that at 15 percent, the unemployment rate among young females was two percent higher than that of young males in 2021.

While the traditional TVET curriculum addresses important gaps in technical skills, soft-skills training including non-cognitive or socio-emotional skills is typically ignored. Evidence from International Labour Organization School to Work Transition surveys reveals several factors contributing to young women facing protracted difficulties in transitioning to formal and informal employment. These include gender-based employment segregation and social and cultural norms that discourage or prevent women from pursuing higher education or working in certain types of jobs.

In fact, Glory Mutungi, the Chief Principal at the Nairobi Technical Training Institute says “the traditional technical and vocational education and training curriculum concentrates on technical skills. However, there is a big gap in acquiring soft skills, yet, these are very important for young people when they are looking for jobs or even for those opting for self-employment after graduation. This is even more true for young women who face unique barriers.”

Ann, a TVET graduate who has been looking for a job for the past two  years echoes the same sentiments. She says that while she gained hands-on technical skills from her training, the lack of soft skills is contributing to her inability to find employment.

 Indeed, a recent report titled: Reaching YES: Addressing the Youth Employment and Skilling Challenge by Generation Unlimited, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and United Nations Children’s Fund notes that globally, young men and women aged 15-24 years are unable to identify or acquire the skills they need for future employment opportunities.

To investigate this phenomenon, researchers from the Partnership for Economic Policy, International Food Policy Research Institute, and the University of Nairobi, with funding from the International Development Research Centre, are studying how gender-sensitive skills training in TVETs can improve the chances of women finding work after graduation.

In the midline and endline survey, the success outcomes of the gender-sensitive skills training will be based on improvements in graduates’ employment and women’s empowerment, enabling the project to provide scalable recommendations for addressing supply and demand side barriers young women face in the labour market.

In the future of work, advanced soft-skills would be pivotal in securing women’s employment in the formal and informal sector. Training curricula that addresses these gaps will improve women’s chances of gaining employment in a world where both men and women are competing against AIs in the labor market. Indeed, gender-sensitive soft skills training will also contribute to the achievement of SDG Goal 5 – gender equality.

 —The writer is a lecturer at the University of Nairobi, Department of Economics and Development Studies