Hidden cost of being young and what our Gen Zs need to thrive

No one ever referred to me as a care worker. Before I turned 18, I could rock a baby to sleep with one hand while stirring a pot of ugali with the other. At 22, just after graduating with my first degree, I put everything on hold to nurse my mother for more than six months, until she passed on.

I was simply seen as a girl fulfilling her expected duties. No one ever asked about my emotional well-being. Many young people have had to pause or abandon their education to care for a child or an ailing kin. Many have had to make the difficult trade-off between earning an income and caregiving responsibilities. Like many young Kenyans, especially girls, my journey into adulthood was marked by invisible labour. And that came at a cost. Today, as Kenya charts its path through the draft National Care Policy, it is time to examine care work through the lens of its youngest contributors and beneficiaries: Generation Z (13 to 28 years) who constitute up to 30 per cent of the population.