IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2025-54.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Urbanization without structural transformation: Evidence from Nairobi metropolitan area

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua Magero

Abstract

Using data from Kenya's 2016 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises survey, the 2017 Census of Establishments, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions, this paper examines the patterns of structural transformation as well as its drivers and barriers in Nairobi. The findings show that the pattern for employment shares by sector over time suggest movements of labour into the service sector. While the movements are largely into non-business activities, business-related activities have also picked up, an indication of the rapid expansion of the ICT sub-sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Magero, 2025. "Urbanization without structural transformation: Evidence from Nairobi metropolitan area," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2025-54, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-54
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2025-54-urbanization-without-structural-transformation.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.