Results of Kenya's 6th National Census i.e The 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census Volume I, II, III, and IV reports.
Nairobi is the most populated county in Kenya. The area formed by the country's capital and its surroundings has a population of over 4.3 million inhabitants. Of the 47 counties in Kenya, 18 have a population of more than one million people.
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Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Nairobi, Kenya metro area from 1950 to 2025.
The average household size in Kenya was *** members according to the last census done in the country in 2019. Nairobi City was the county with the smallest households, formed by an average of *** people. By contrast, Mandera registered the largest household size. In the county located in North Eastern Kenya, households had *** members.
The 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (2022 KDHS) is the seventh DHS survey implemented in Kenya. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and other stakeholders implemented the survey. Survey planning began in late 2020 with data collection taking place from February 17 to July 19, 2022. ICF provided technical assistance through The DHS Program, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and offers financial support and technical assistance for population and health surveys in countries worldwide. Other agencies and organizations that facilitated the successful implementation of the survey through technical or financial support were the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Nutrition International, the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Clinton Health Access Initiative, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
SURVEY OBJECTIVES The primary objective of the 2022 KDHS is to provide up-to-date estimates of demographic, health, and nutrition indicators to guide the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of population and health-related programs at the national and county levels. The specific objectives of the 2022 KDHS are to: Estimate fertility levels and contraceptive prevalence Estimate childhood mortality Provide basic indicators of maternal and child health Estimate the Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI) Collect anthropometric measures for children, women, and men Collect information on children's nutrition Collect information on women's dietary diversity Obtain information on knowledge and behavior related to transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) Obtain information on noncommunicable diseases and other health issues Ascertain the extent and patterns of domestic violence and female genital mutilation/cutting
National coverage
Household, individuals, county and national level
The survey covered sampled households
The sample for the 2022 KDHS was drawn from the Kenya Household Master Sample Frame (K-HMSF). This is the frame that KNBS currently operates to conduct household-based sample surveys in Kenya. In 2019, Kenya conducted a Population and Housing Census, and a total of 129,067 enumeration areas (EAs) were developed. Of these EAs, 10,000 were selected with probability proportional to size to create the K-HMSF. The 10,000 EAs were randomized into four equal subsamples. The survey sample was drawn from one of the four subsamples. The EAs were developed into clusters through a process of household listing and geo-referencing. To design the frame, each of the 47 counties in Kenya was stratified into rural and urban strata, resulting in 92 strata since Nairobi City and Mombasa counties are purely urban.
The 2022 KDHS was designed to provide estimates at the national level, for rural and urban areas, and, for some indicators, at the county level. Given this, the sample was designed to have 42,300 households, with 25 households selected per cluster, resulting into 1,692 clusters spread across the country with 1,026 clusters in rural areas and 666 in urban areas.
Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]
Eight questionnaires were used for the 2022 KDHS: 1. A full Household Questionnaire 2. A short Household Questionnaire 3. A full Woman's Questionnaire 4. A short Woman's Questionnaire 5. A Man's Questionnaire 6. A full Biomarker Questionnaire 7. A short Biomarker Questionnaire 8. A Fieldworker Questionnaire.
The Household Questionnaire collected information on: o Background characteristics of each person in the household (for example, name, sex, age, education, relationship to the household head, survival of parents among children under age 18) o Disability o Assets, land ownership, and housing characteristics o Sanitation, water, and other environmental health issues o Health expenditures o Accident and injury o COVID-19 (prevalence, vaccination, and related deaths) o Household food consumption
The Woman's Questionnaire was used to collect information from women age 15-49 on the following topics: o Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics o Reproduction o Family planning o Maternal health care and breastfeeding o Vaccination and health of children o Children's nutrition o Woman's dietary diversity o Early childhood development o Marriage and sexual activity o Fertility preferences o Husbands' background characteristics and women's employment activity o HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and tuberculosis (TB) o Other health issues o Early Childhood Development Index 2030 o Chronic diseases o Female genital mutilation/cutting o Domestic violence
The Man's Questionnaire was administered to men age 15-54 living in the households selected for long Household Questionnaires. The questionnaire collected information on: o Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics o Reproduction o Family planning o Marriage and sexual activity o Fertility preferences o Employment and gender roles o HIV/AIDS, other STIs, and TB o Other health issues o Chronic diseases o Female genital mutilation/cutting o Domestic violence
The Biomarker Questionnaire collected information on anthropometry (weight and height). The long Biomarker Questionnaire collected anthropometry measurements for children age 0-59 months, women age 15-49, and men age 15-54, while the short questionnaire collected weight and height measurements only for children age 0-59 months.
The Fieldworker Questionnaire was used to collect basic background information on the people who collected data in the field. This included team supervisors, interviewers, and biomarker technicians.
All questionnaires except the Fieldworker Questionnaire were translated into the Swahili language to make it easier for interviewers to ask questions in a language that respondents could understand.
Data were downloaded from the central servers and checked against the inventory of expected returns to account for all data collected in the field. SyncCloud was also used to generate field check tables to monitor progress and flag any errors, which were communicated back to the field teams for correction.
Secondary editing was done by members of the central office team, who resolved any errors that were not corrected by field teams during data collection. A CSPro batch editing tool was used for cleaning and tabulation during data analysis.
A total of 42,022 households were selected for the sample, of which 38,731 (92%) were found to be occupied. Among the occupied households, 37,911 were successfully interviewed, yielding a response rate of 98%. The response rates for urban and rural households were 96% and 99%, respectively. In the interviewed households, 33,879 women age 15-49 were identified as eligible for individual interviews. Interviews were completed with 32,156 women, yielding a response rate of 95%. The response rates among women selected for the full and short questionnaires were the similar (95%). In the households selected for the male survey, 16,552 men age 15-54 were identified as eligible for individual interviews and 14,453 were successfully interviewed, yielding a response rate of 87%.
In 2016, UNHCR became aware of a group of stateless persons living in or near Nairobi, Kenya. Most of them were Shona, descendants of missionaries who arrived from Zimbabwe and Zambia in the 1960s and remained in Kenya. The total number of Shona living in Kenya is estimated to be between 3,000 and 3,500 people. On their first arrival, the Shona were issued certificates of registration, but a change in the Registration of Persons Act of 1978 did not make provision for people of non-Kenyan descent, consequently denying the Shona citizenship. Zimbabwe and Zambia did not consider them nationals either, rendering them stateless. Besides the Shona, there are other groups of stateless persons of different origins and ethnicities, with the total number of stateless persons in Kenya estimated at 18,500. UNHCR and the Government of Kenya are taking steps to address statelessness in the country, among them is the registration of selected groups for nationalization. In April 2019, the Government of Kenya pledged to recognize qualifying members of the Shona community as Kenyan citizens. However, the lack of detailed information on the stateless population in Kenya hinders advocacy for the regularization of their nationality status. Together with the Kenyan Government through the Department of Immigration Services (DIS) and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), UNHCR Kenya conducted registration and socioeconomic survey for the Shona community from May to July 2019. While the primary objective of the registration was to document migration, residence and family history with the aim of preparing their registration as citizens, this survey was conducted to provide a baseline on the socio-economic situation of the stateless Shona population for comparison with non-stateless populations of Kenya.
Githurai, Nairobi, Kiambaa and Kinoo
Household and individual
All Shona living in Nairobi and Kiambu counties, Kenya
Census/enumeration data [cen]
The objective of the socio-economic survey was to cover the entire Shona population living in areas of the Nairobi and Kiambu counties. This included Shona living in Githurai, Kiambaa, Kinoo and other urban areas in and around Nairobi. Data collection for the socioeconomic survey took place concurrently with a registration verification. The registration verification was to collect information on the Shona's migration history, residence in Kenya and legal documentation to prepare their registration as citizens. The registration activity including questions on basic demographics also covered some enumeration areas outside the ones of the socio-economic survey, such as institutional households in Hurlingham belonging to a religious order who maintain significantly different living conditions than the average population. The total number of households for which socio-economic data was collected for is 350 with 1,692 individuals living in them. A listing of Shona households using key informant lists and respondent-driven referral to identify further households was conducted by KNBS and UNHCR before the start of enumeration for the registration verification and socio-economic survey.
None
Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]
The following sections are included: household roster, education, employment, household characteristics, consumption and expenditure.
The dataset presented here has undergone light checking, cleaning and restructuring (data may still contain errors) as well as anonymization (includes removal of direct identifiers and sensitive variables, recoding and local suppression).
Overall reponse rate was 99 percent, mainly due to refusal to participate.
The World Bank in collaboration with the Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) conducted a cross-sectional survey on refugee and host populations living in Nairobi. The survey was based on the Kenya Continuous Household Survey (KCHS) and targets both host populations and refugees living in Nairobi. Through a participatory training format, enumerators learned how to collect quality data specific for refugees as well as nationals. Daily data quality monitoring dashboards were produced during the data collection periods to provide feedback to the field team and correct possible errors. The data was collected with CAPI technique through the World Bank developed Survey Solutions software; this ensured high standards of data storage, protection and pre-processing.
The sample is representative of refugees and other residents living in Nairobi. The refugee sample was drawn from UNHCR’s database of refugees and asylum seekers (proGres) using implicit stratification by sub-county and country of origin. The host community sampling frame was drawn using a two-stage cluster design. In the first stage, eligible enumeration areas (EAs) based on the 2019 Population and Housing Census were selected. In the second stage 12 households were sampled from each EA. The survey differentiates between two types of host communities: ‘core’ host communities were drawn from EAs located within the three areas with the largest number of refugee families: Kasarani, Eastleigh North and Kayole. At least 10 percent of the Nairobi refugee families reside in each of these areas. ‘Wider’ host communities cover the rest of the Nairobi population and were drawn from EAs which do not cover the three areas in which many refugees live.
For a subset of households, a women empowerment module was administered by a trained female enumerator to one randomly selected woman in each household aged 15 to 49.
The data set contains two files. hh.dta contains household level information. The ‘hhid’ variable uniquely identifies all households. hhm.dta contains data at the level of the individual for all household members. Each household member is uniquely identified by the variable ‘hhm_id’.
This cross-sectional survey was conducted between May 22 to July 27, 2021. It comprises a sample of 4,853 households in total, 2,420 of which are refugees and 2,433 are hosts.
Nairobi county, Kenya
Household, Individual
The survey has two primary samples contained in the ‘sample’ variable: the refugee sample and the host community sample. The refugee sample used the UNHCR database of refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya (proGres) as the sampling frame. ProGres holds information on all registered refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya including their contact information and data on nationality and approximate location of living. We considered only refugees living in Nairobi and implicitly stratified by nationality and location. In total, the sample comprises 2,420 refugee families.
The host community sample differentiates between two types of communities. We consider ‘core’ host communities as residents who live in Eastleigh North, Kayole or Kasarani – at least 10 percent of the Nairobi refugee families reside in each of these areas. Nationals living outside these areas are considered part of the ‘wider’ host community in Nairobi. The samples for both host communities were drawn using a 2-stage cluster design. In the first stage, eligible enumeration areas (EA) were drawn from the list of EAs covering Nairobi taken from the 2019 Population and Housing Census. In the second stage a listing of all host community households was established through a household census within all selected EAs, ensuring that refugee households were excluded to prevent overlap with the refugee sampling frame. 12 households and 6 replacements were drawn per EA. Our total sample consists of 2,433 host community households, 1,221 core hosts and 1,212 wider hosts.
The three sub-samples – refugees, core hosts, and wider hosts – are reflected in the ‘strata’ variable. The EAs which form the primary sampling units for the two host samples are anonymized and included in the ‘psu’ variable. Please note that the ‘psu’ variable clusters refugees under one numeric code (888).
Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]
The Questionnaire is provided as external resources in pdf format. Questionnaires were produced through the World Bank developed Survey Solutions software. The survey was implemented in English,Swahili and Somali.
Kenya had over ** million households according to the last census done in 2019. The majority, some *** million, lived in urban areas, while *** million dwelled in rural zones. Nairobi City was the county with more households, approximately *** million.
This statistic shows the total population of Kenya from 2013 to 2023 by gender. In 2023, Kenya's female population amounted to approximately 27.82 million, while the male population amounted to approximately 27.52 million inhabitants.
Kenya had a Muslim population of roughly 5.6 million people, according to the last country census conducted in 2019. Nearly 50 percent of individuals adhering to Islam lived in the Northern-East counties of Mandera (856.5 thousand people), Garissa (815.8 thousand people), and Wajir (767.3 thousand people). Overall, around 10 percent of Kenya's population identified as Muslim.
Kenya had a Catholic population of roughly 9.7 million people, according to the last country census conducted in 2019. Around one million Catholics lived in the capital Nairobi, the largest amount among all Kenyan counties. Nearly 590,000 people living in Kiambu adhered to Catholicism, while half-million dwelled in Machakos.
Kenya had a Protestant population of nearly 15.8 million people, according to the last country census conducted in 2019. Around 1.36 million Protestants lived in the capital Nairobi, the largest amount among all Kenyan counties. Nearly 882,800 people living in Kiambu adhered to Protestantism, while 715,700 Protestants dwelled in Bungoma. The religion had the highest number of followers in the country.
Around 563,000 students were enrolled in universities in Kenya during the academic year 2022/23. The number increased from roughly 562,100 in 2021/22. According to the source, the growth was related to an expansion in the number of government sponsored students. Men constituted majority of students in Kenyan universities, some 322,760 against 240,170 thousand women.
Public versus private
Most of the students enrolled in higher education in Kenya attended public universities, making up a total of 448,500 in 2021/2022. Kenyatta University and the University of Nairobi were the preferred institutions: Combined, they accounted for toughly one-third of the students enrolled in public institutions. The number of enrolees in private tertiary institutions reached 113,600 in the same period.
Kenyans with higher education
The most recent census conducted in Kenya revealed that 3.5 percent of the country's population had a university degree as the highest educational level completed in 2019. Other seven percent finished a middle level or technical training after the secondary level. In comparison, some 14 percent of the population aged 15-29 years in East Africa had an upper-secondary or tertiary education in 2020. This share is projected to increase to 19 percent in 2030.
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Results of Kenya's 6th National Census i.e The 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census Volume I, II, III, and IV reports.