Exposure of Women in Politics to Media Coverage and Their Ability to Raise Self-Esteem of Children in Nakuru County

As the number of women in politics continues to increase worldwide, balancing their political and parenting roles may pose a challenge. The study was carried out to investigate the effects of exposure of women to media coverage on their ability to raise the self-esteem of their children in Nakuru County. The study adopted an ex post facto research design. The study had an accessible population of 129 respondents that comprised 105 women members of county assembly aspirants, 12 women parliamentary aspirants, 10 women representative aspirants and two women senatorial aspirants in Nakuru County during the 2017 general elections. The census sampling technique was used to select all the 129 respondents. Data was collected using a questionnaire. The content and face validity of the questionnaire were ascertained of the study objectives and advice by experts from the Department of Applied Community Development Studies of Egerton University. To estimate the reliability of the instrument, a pilot study was conducted on fourteen women political aspirants who participated in the 2017 general elections from neighbouring Nyandarua County. The questionnaire was considered reliable when it attained an estimated Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.78. The questionnaire was self-administered with the guidance from the researcher. Quantitative data was summarized in frequency distribution tables and the responses were analysed using simple regression analysis methods with the help of SPSS computer package 25.0 version. Qualitative data was summarized in emerging themes based on the objectives of the study. The study revealed that exposure of women to media coverage affected their ability to raise the self-esteem of their children in Nakuru County (β- 0.790) at 0.05 level of significance. The study findings may offer insights to women politicians, education researchers and other stakeholders on the importance of parenthood and the challenges faced by women politicians