Kenya Focus: An Undervalued/Unprotected Informal Economy of Africa’s Childcare Workforce Sector
A 2026 report by the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) and the Coalition on Violence Against Women (COVAW) has cast a harsh light on Kenya’s paid childcare sector, describing it as a “zone of exploitation” sustained by poor wages, informality and near-total regulatory neglect. Behind the statistics is a workforce that is overwhelmingly female, whose labour quietly enables households, help owners of businesses/corporate workers, and the wider economy to function, even as their own lives remain precarious and stationed.
A fictional story narration of a 29years old woman, who has spent most of her adult life caring for other people’s children, paints a vivid picture of what the childcare work-engagement in Africa entails and how it affects the workers. Her work designation sits at the heart of family life and the urban economy, but for her, it came at the expense of her own safety and future. As a teenager without parents, she was sent from her rural home to Nairobi with assurances that a “good family” would take her in and secure her future through the sponsorship of her education. What awaited her instead was Kenya’s vast, informal domestic work economy, commonly referred to as maid work; where childcare, cooking and cleaning merge into long, undefined days of labour with little pay and no protection.
Her story reflects how family arrangements, culture and poverty intersect and malign young people’s future across Africa. Many rural families that are facing hardship, send their teenage children (mostly the girl-child) to the city to work in a household, which is seen as a survival strategy and as a form of social support. Employers often frame the arrangement as “helping” a young child rather than hiring a worker. Blurring the line between kinship and labour. In practice, this informality strips off the rights of standard professional workers in this field. Often without contracts, clear/defined working hours or oversight, these domestic spaces become workplaces hidden from public scrutiny, over what the subject in question faces.
The human cost is profound. Days can stretch far beyond normal working hours. Rest, for these children, is treated as a favour and discipline is often informal and harsh. Because the work takes place inside private homes, verbal, economic or physical abuse is inevitable. And complaints against these odds rarely reaches authorities. In most cases, the choice of moving to a new employer is seemed to probably offer hope, but it often reproduces the same conditions, creating cycles of vulnerability that are difficult to escape.
Culturally, childcare is still widely viewed as women’s natural responsibility rather than skilled labour. This perception helps explain why the work is undervalued, even as urban families increasingly rely on it to balance jobs, businesses and long trips. The contradiction is stark, as the quality of care of the children’s lives is entrusted with the caregivers, yet they themselves remain invisible.
This Kenyan woman as our case-study, with a pen name tagged – “Jane”, worked up to 16 hours a day, without rest days or a contract. When mistakes happened, they were met with insults and threats, sometimes escalating into physical harm. Trying to escape, she moved between employers, only to encounter the same conditions; wages below Ksh5000 a month, no written agreements and constant vulnerability. Marriage for her did not workout to bring her stability. So no children of her own to support; and no savings to fall back on, Jane returned to paid childcare job. A sector she describes as “the only work available, even when it hurts you”. Her story reflects a structural problem rather than an individual tragedy, which happens in different locations across Africa.
Childcare workers’ salaries in Kenya, sits at the intersection of poverty, gender inequality and weak labour regulation. According to a year-2024 baseline study by the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) under the Action for Paid Childcare Sector Transformation (ACT) project, more than three-quarter of childcare workers earn below Ksh10,000 a month. Far less than the legal minimum wage for domestic workers.
The investigation finds that 75.8% of childcare workers earn less than KSh10,000 a month, far below the national minimum wage. Only 13% earn enough to meet basic needs, forcing many to rely on debt, remittances from relatives, or additional informal work to survive. To most of the families who depend on this employment/income, the consequences are immediate. Their children pull out of school, experience skipped meals, housing insecurity, etc. “When pay is late or cut without warning, everything collapses at once”, said one worker interviewed in Nairobi’s Eastlands.
Informality is the norm, not the exception. Nearly 88% of workers have no written contracts, leaving them exposed to wage theft, arbitrary dismissal and sudden changes in hours or duties. Employers often frame childcare as “help” not skilled work. This is a language that reinforces the idea that protections are optional. This framing has ripple effects across class and gender lines, normalizing a system where one group of women’s paid-work subsidizes another’s participation in the formal economy.
Working conditions are frequently long and unsafe. The sector is 95% female, with many workers clocking 16-hour days, from early mornings to late nights, particularly for live-in arrangements. The report documents widespread exposure to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), yet 70% of workers report, indicated that they have received no training on prevention or response measures against physical or verbal abuse. Abuse often goes unreported, partly because the workplace is a private home. What the report calls a ‘hidden-workforce’ beyond the reach of routine labour inspection.
This invisibility is structural. Because childcare labour is scattered across Africa in private households, enforcement is weak and accountability diffuse. Local authorities struggle to inspect, unions find it difficult to organise a regulation; and workers fear retaliation if they speak out. The result is a sector that is essential but politically marginal as nobody’s priority, in respect to the SGBV report. Moreso see it as functional invisible-engineering-hub that allows other women to take up paid employment in the same workforce.
Kenya’s situation is not unique. Comparative research shows similar patterns across Africa, though with notable differences in policy response. Ghana’s private childcare market is growing rapidly, but weak regulation and dependence on household fees limit quality and worker’s protection. Ethiopia has invested in pre-primary education and caregiver training, but care for children under three years remains largely informal. Unmistakably, Nigeria could be the biggest market in Africa for this informal practice, with so much sociocultural manhandling of the workers.
There are broader social and economic costs. Low-quality and unstable childcare affects children’s safety and development, while the absence of standards undermines trust between families and workers. In the case of most business men/women, unreliable care contributes to absenteeism and reduced productivity. While for the government, failure to recognise institutionalize childcare as a skilled labour, perpetuates sustenance of informality in a promising sector, gender inequality and misses a tax revenue generation channel.
Calls for action from WUSC, COVAW and community stakeholders positively apt. They urge the Kenyan government to ratify ILO Convention 189, guaranteeing fair wages, written contracts and social protection for domestic workers; and ILO Convention 190, which addresses violence and harassment at the work place. They also recommend formalising the sector and investing in state-subsidised childcare centres, particularly in low-income communities, to reduce the burden on households and workers alike. These suggestive calls, are also advisory for other African countries where they have not institutionalize this childcare informal sector.
At the grassroots, worker groups are also pushing for recognition through training and certification, standard contracts, clear grievance mechanisms settlement system and inclusion in social protection schemes. Their message is simple but transformative, outlining that childcare is skilled work, not charity or favour. Treating it as such, the report argues, would not only protect workers but strengthen families, support businesses/owners and advance Kenya’s commitments to gender equality and decent work.
As Kenya debates economic growth and labour reform, the report insists that progress will remain incomplete unless it reaches the kitchens and living rooms where childcare workers labour is unseen. Making this invisible workforce visible in Kenya, is the first step toward justice for the workers.
