Kenya has depicted some interesting trends in the socioeconomic sphere, since its independence some of them are portraying consistency like urbanization and fertility rate while others like per capita income, life expectancy and official development assistance, etc. show some marked changes. Some of these changes and their reasons along with their mutual correlation are explained in the following lines.
However, in the 90s the per capita income started decreasing and with it the average life as well. The downward trend in average life is also accompanied by a decrease in income and the reasons are no different from the reasons mentioned above, but just in reverse. The decrease in income caused a decrease in the standard of living, food, health, etc. and so with that, life expectancy decreased. The average life kept on reducing through all the 90s, even though the GNI per capita has again begun to move upward. It was mostly the result of sexually transmitted disease and the lack of clean water. Kenya experienced high inflation and poverty rates in the 90s due to a global economic crunch and Kenya like some other third world countries felt the heat. Its fragile economy and intense social stratification were not able to sustain the improved living standard in the midst of the economic slump, and the lack of foreign aid aggravated the situation even further. Add into this situation the AIDS epidemic, and it would not be hard to conceive the reduction in the life expectancy in that era. Since, the beginning of this millennium, the average life has again started to improve and it is constantly on a rise along with per capita income. At present, on average, a Kenyan is expected to live more than 60 years and the per capita income is around 800 dollars. It shows the efforts UN and other donor and relief agencies are doing in Kenya and in the whole Africa are paying some dividends.
Additionally, the graph of aid as official development assistance further strengthens the point that life expectancy is the function of the standard of living. The graph of life expectancy and that of developmental spending look like very similar in trend. In the first two decades the government was receiving development assistances regularly and the value of life expectancy was rising. But, in the 90s the government cut the developmental spending because of the reduction in the foreign aid and it affected the health and economy of the people. And it is another sign of debilitating living standard, high inflation and increasing poverty in that decade. Just to quote a few figures, Kenya received developmental aid of 49 million dollars in its first year and the aid increased steadily till 1990 when it was around 1.18 billion dollars. Then, in the 90s, it decreased due to a worldwide crunch of the 90s. The foreign aid kept on dwindling throughout the whole decade and reached the lowest ebb in 1999 when it was around 300 million dollars.
In a similar manner, the statistics clearly depict the effects of improved water resources and immunization of the public health which then manifest in increased average life. At the beginning of the last decade, 50% of Kenyan population had the accesses to improved water sources, but in just 10 years the access level has reached over 60 %. As for immunization, at the beginning of in the late 90s 78% children were immunized for measles while in the 2011 the percentage has reached 90.
Notably, one of the major social change Kenya is experiencing since its independence is the increase in urbanization. Urbanization has always been an issue for the Kenyan government. At the time of its independence, the total population of the country was around 8 million and only 7.5% were urban while in 2009 25% people were living in the cities. Increasing industrialization and hope for better economic opportunities continuously pulling the people from villages to cities. Continues urban population pressure even during the troubled decade of the 90s would have also aggravated the situation and would have affected the living standard and seriously hampered the service delivery. The cluster of population in big cities was one of the reasons for the AIDS epidemic in the 90s.
Moreover, socioeconomic status, education and environment have a strong correlation. Literate people are more apt to deal with social problems, and education can provide them better income opportunities. In recent years, the Kenyan government has been focusing on education and it has also started a free primary education program as well. Since 1995 school enrollment in on a rise and the effects are translating in the form of increasing per capita income and more awareness regarding health and the environment. In early 2000s the gross percentage of females going to primary school were 89%, but it has increased to gross 110% in 2009 that depicts the education programs of the government like Free Primary Education (FPE) and the Free Tuition Secondary Education (FTSE) programs are running successfully. If these programs keep on running in the same manner, Kenya is expected to fulfill one of the Millennium Development Goals of providing the primary education to all the children by 2016.
On the subject of inflation, Kenya has suffered from high inflation and unemployment throughout of its history much like other African countries. The inflation rate mostly remains in the double figures around 10 or 11, but some years in the 90s depicted much higher inflation even from the Kenyan standard. The year 1996 stands out in the graph; the inflation rate in that year was 42%. The reason for higher inflation rates in the 90s are directly linked with the oil price hike in those years. Inflation increased in the early 90s, reaching the peak value in 1993 due to high budget deficit and, then decreased due to government actions, but then again increased in 1996 due high import bills and oil prices. The trend of inflation in the 90s can be understood by looking at the Kenyan import data. In 1990, the imports were 31% of the GDP and the inflation rate was 10.6%, in 1993 inflation rate jumped from 11% to 23.3% with the 3% increase in imports. Finally, inflation reached its highest mark of 42% in 1996 due to the large import-export deficit in the previous year. The accompanying imports to the 1996 inflation were around 40% of the GDP. The budget data also supports that the high budget deficits in the 90s were the cause of inflation. As to fill the budget deficit and to balance the payments the Kenyan government printed large amount of additional money and consequently, it caused the high inflation rate. In the year 1991 the deficit was -2.75% of GDP that caused higher inflation in the year 1993 and in the year 1995 the deficit was the -5% of the GDP and it led to the marked inflation of 1996.
Works Cited
Independence Years and Dates of African Countries. (n.d.). Retrieved from ipoaa.com: http://ipoaa.com/african_independence.htm
United Nation University . (n.d.). Kenya'S Socio-Economic Setting. Retrieved from archive.unu.edu: http://archive.unu.edu/env/govern/ElNIno/CountryReports/inside/Kenya/SOCIO-ECONOMIC/SOCIO-ECONOMIC_txt.html
World Bank. (n.d.). DataVisualizer. Retrieved from worldbank.org: http://devdata.worldbank.org/DataVisualizer/
