Employment rate, higher for women than men in Rwanda

Rwanda has always recorded a higher female employment rate over past ten years than in men category. Even though the difference is not so big, women are still having a bigger employment rate since 2000.

This was 85.2% for female against 83.2% for male in 2010. The situation was the same in 2000, where employment rate was 87.8% for female and 85.4% for male.
 
Evolution of employment rate for females and males groups

In general, the employment rate in Rwanda changed in different categories of the population, with the higher rate recorded in rural areas than the urban areas.Official statistics show that the urban employment rate passed from 86.2% in rural against 74.2% in urban areas country wide in 2005, up to 77.3% Urban and 85.6% in rural areas in 2010. The rural areas were experiencing the higher employment rate in 2000 with 90.0% against 71.1% in urban areas.

Looking at the age basis, the three surveys on household living standards prove that the biggest change of employment rate is found to exist among young people group aged 16 and 24 years old, where  employment rate has changed from 77.1% in 2000 to 63.7% in 2010. This can result in school enrollment which has continuously increasing over past ten years. The employment rate increased significantly from 91.9% in 2005 to 95.4% in 2010 among the persons aged 55-64 years, in the category aged 65 years and above, the employment rate was 76.5% in 2000 and it has been 80.3% in 2010, which means that this category is also contributing to the development of the country.

In general, the employment rate has considerably increased in the past ten years and this has a correlation with the increase of the growth of the national economy. These results are coming from different surveys conducted by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR).