Affirmative Action: A Kenyan Case

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Sociology - Relationships and Family, grade: B, Moi University (SCHOOL OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT), course: MASTERS DEGREE IN HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT, language: English, abstract: Affirmative action is a practice that redresses discrimination in society and is therefore meant to promote equal opportunities between men and women. The purpose of this study was to examine the public perception of affirmative action on women recruitment and career development in organizations within Eldoret municipality. The study objectives were to establish: the public perceptions about affirmative action, the contribution of affirmative action on women career development, the extent to which affirmative action has been incorporated in recruitment of women and the relationship between affirmative action and organization performance. The study was guided by Rawls theory of Justice (1971) which states that all social primary goods - liberty and opportunity, income, jobs and wealth, and the bases of self-respect be distributed equally and there should be no differences and/or discrimination except those that can be justified on grounds of competence.The research employed an Expost Facto Survey research design, which was deemed appropriate because it handles situations or events that have already occurred, examines variables with the same characteristics and does not manipulate the variables. Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting the organizations for study. The respondents were picked using simple random sampling. Eight organizations were selected. A sample size of 255 respondents was selected but 210 questionnaires were returned and 8 interviews done. Questionnaires and interviews were used in data collection.Data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively facilitated by the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Data was presented in frequency tables, graphs and pie charts.An inferential statistic technique, the chi-square test and Mann Whitney U-test were used to test the hypothesis at ¿ 0.05 level of significance. The hypotheses that an affirmative action policy does not affect significantly recruitment policies in organization and affirmative action does not enhance women career development were tested.The results from the study indicate that there is perverse inequality in employment since men are more represented than women in almost all employment categories. Affirmative action is perceived as the most ambitious attempt to put right the long history of gender discrimination. It was noted that women tend to lag behind their male counterparts in career development. The respondents proposed recruitment by performance.