Influence of Demographic Factors on Women’s Participation in Political Leadership in Rongo Constituency, Migori County, Kenya

The purpose of the study is to investigate the influence of demographic factors on women’s participation in political leadership in Rongo Constituency, Migori County, Kenya. A lot of strategies have been formulated both nationally and internationally to make it possible for women to participate in political leadership yet the level of women’s participation in this field remains low not only in Kenya but world over.  Kenya remains challenged in ascendancy of women into political leadership. At the moment in East Africa, Kenya is the worst performing in women’s political leadership it only has 19.7 percent of women in the 11^th parliament. In the history of Kenya, Rongo constituency has never been represented by a woman member of parliament and only one woman has ever run for the political office. Even the newly established senate assembly has no elected woman member of   constituency assembly. The objective of the study is to assess the influence of demographic factors such as education and marital status on women’s participation in political leadership. Literature was reviewed on the demographic factors and their influence on women’s political leadership. The study adopted a mixed approach in the generation and analysis of data as well as the generalizations of the findings. The study employed a case study as the research methodology. It applied questionnaires and interviews as data generation techniques. The data generated was analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The study concluded that women’s marital status and educational level influence their participation in political leadership. The study recommends that education of women should be promoted more. The education curriculum should also include political training right from the primary education level to tertiary level. Similarly, women should negotiate for sharing of domestic responsibilities with other members of the family in order to have time to focus on political careers if they so wish to. There is also need for civic education in Rongo constituency, Kenya to help propagate issues of women emancipation.