Gender Equality in the Oil Mining Sector: An Interaction with Socio Demographic Factors in Lokichar, Turkana Kenya

Abstract

The extraction and processing of minerals presents an opportunity for women’s economic empowerment. The paper capitalizes on the authors recent study “Change in Gender Roles as a Factor in Gender Participation and Empowerment in The Oil Mining Industry: A Case of Lokichar, Kenya” whose main objective was to establish the changes in gender roles and participation as influenced by oil mining in Lokichar in Turkana County. The  paper anchors on interaction with Socio Demographic factors. The null hypothesis; there is no relationship between equal hiring and equal  opportunity for men and women to work in mining activities was tested. The target group was the active labour force (direct and indirect) aged  between 15 to 64 years. The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches to data collection. Cross tabulation was generated on the  responses to show the differences based on the gender and Chi-square used to test the hypotheses and establish whether there were changes in  gender roles and empowerment. Major findings indicate that there is a relationship between equal hiring and gender equality. The socio  demographic indicators findings are discussed in depth. This descriptive study therefore intended to enlighten stakeholders (i.e. government and oil  companies) to craft policies in a bid to respond to challenges in oil mining and adopt gender sensitive policies that can help to enhance  workforce efficiency and enhance gender equality. The paper recommends that issues like compensation, decision making, royalty sharing, power  relations should be well spelt in policies to ensure gender mainstreaming.