Kenyan men aged between 18-34 years are monetary poorer than their female colleagues in the same age bracket, a study by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics(KNBS) shows.

In the new Comprehensive Poverty Report completed in 2018, KNBS has placed the monetary poverty for male youths at 29.1 percent while for females at 28.8 percent.

Although there are several studies on poverty indices, Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani said this was the first study attempting to measure poverty levels in a comprehensive manner.

“This report is the first attempt in Kenya to measure poverty in a comprehensive manner, including multidimensional and monetary approaches, for different population groups -notably children, the youth, women, men and the elderly using the 2015/16 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey,” said CS Yattani while releasing the report.

Unlike the past studies that mainly focused on income levels, this new study used other parameters like nutrition, housing, and education to measure the poverty levels.

Multidimensional poverty

Although men were found to be monetary poorer than women, multidimensionally, the female youths were poorer.

The study also placed Kakamega County youths to be the most poor followed by Nakuru. Lamu and Isiolo counties ranked the least with multidimensional poverty among the youth.

In urban areas, the study considered as poor the youths who use below Sh2,551 per month, and below Sh1,954 for rural youths.

On average, the study found 48.1(6.4 million) percent of Kenyan youths to be multidimensional poor and 28.9(3.8 million) percent to be monetary poor. Both monetary and multidimensional poverty were higher in the rural areas than in urban areas.

Nearly half of youths(6.4 million) are multidimensionally poor and are deprived most of the needs analysed.

The study found marriage, living with a disability, big family size, and living in the rural areas to be the top contributors of poverty among the youth.

Also, the study found 23.4 million Kenyans to be deprived of basic needs, services and rights.

The children bore the brunt of multidimensional poverty followed by the youth with the elderly population(above 60 years) being the least poor.

More than one in three Kenyans (15.9million) were found to be monetary poor with more poverty cases in the rural areas than in urban areas.