The EICV7 survey revealed that 27.4% of the population was living in poverty in 2023/24. Modelling shows that if the same methodology had been applied in 2016/17, the poverty rate at that time would have been 39.8%. This represents a reduction in poverty of just over twelve percentage points over seven years.
The results of EICV7 shows that the working age population (16 years old or above) represented 61% of the total population.
The proportion of females in the working age population was 54% which is almost the same as their corresponding proportion in the total population (52%)
The number of workers totaled 6,564,000, with female workers accounting for about 52 per cent, which is almost the same as their share in the working age population. Overall workforce to population ratio in Rwanda remains higher at 80%.
The proportion of workers among the working age population in EICV7 was 72.1% in urban area and 83.4% in rural areas. The lowest workforce to population ratio was observed in City of Kigali was 73.0%, it ranges from 78% to 85% in other provinces.
Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers constitute the largest occupational group (47.4%), followed by elementary occupation (27.1%). Around 56.3% of females are working in agricultural, forestry and fishery occupations against 37.7% for men.
The majority of workers in their main work worked in agriculture sector (61.6%). Other economic activity sectors with the high proportion of workers are wholesale and retail trade (9.3%), construction (6.5%), manufacturing (3.5%), Transportation and Storage (3.4%) and households as employers (3.1%).