Economic Aspects
Economic aspects include the cost, benefit, employment, fiscal policies, production, distribution, and consumption of goods/services in Kenya and how those things affect the problem of access to and education of feminine hygiene products.
Evidence indicates that Economics of Kenya affects the access and education of feminine hygiene products in the following ways:
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1. Cost of feminine products
2. Loss of school days
COST OF FEMININE PRODUCTS
In a country were 42% of its population lives below the poverty line ("Kenya at a glance"), little money is available to purchase disposable feminine hygiene products. Many women turn to using old pieces of clothing or newspapers (Donovan, 2012) to help absorb their monthly flow.
In 2004, the government recognized this barrier and repealed taxes on feminine products. This has lowered the cost of a pack of 8 sanitary napkins to about a dollar, but this is still out of reach for many families whose budget is controlled by men. The tax repeal also received backlash from manufacturers who complain that while the tax on the finished product has been removed, taxes on the materials needed to make pads and tampons still exist (Hallett, 2016). Process has certainly been made in removing this barrier, but 65% of women and girls in Kenya still cannot afford traditional disposable hygiene products (Geertz et. al., 2016).
From the Human Capital Research Portal, http://www.hcresearchportal.com/reports/kenya
From WomenStrong International, https://www.womenstrong.org/campaigns/menstruation-empower-the-period
KENYA'S ECONOMY
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Achieved middle-income status in 2014
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9th largest economy in Africa
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Strong growth in recent years
Source: Menstrual Health In Kenya, 2016
MISSING SCHOOL
In Kenya, school girls who are menstruating miss an average of 4.9 days per month of school (Tatum, 2015), and as a whole, Kenyan girls lose 3.5 million school days each month due to menstruation (Kanja, 2015). Eventually this leads to gender disparities in the classroom, as male students rise to the top of the class and females fall further and further behind. This leads many menstruating women to drop out. 54% of girls who started menstruating before age 11 reported diminished academic performance (Geertz et. al., 2016).
In a study done in Pakistan, women with a primary education made 51% of what men made, and women with secondary educations made 70%. If girls stayed in school beyond the seventh grade, they were more likely to marry later, have safer pregnancies and deliveries, and raise healthier and educated children (Tatum, 2015). Simply put, women's lives depend upon being able to stay in school. Without access to adequate feminine hygiene products and menstrual education, women earn less, have more health complications, and experience a lesser quality of life.
This video examines how girls in the Bosia region of Kenya are so desperate for sanitary products, they will resort to transactional sex which often leaves them victims of sexual violence, and puts them at heightened risk of STIs and teenage pregnancy (Nyabwe, 2017).