Social capital and health micro-insurance uptake by the informal sector workers in Kenya
Keywords:
health micro-insurance uptake, informal sector workers, mobile telephone technology, social capitalAbstract
This paper focuses on social capital as a determinant of health micro insurance uptake by informal
sector workers in eight regions (Lake, North Rift, Central, Pwani, South Eastern, Frontier counties,
Narok-Kajiado and Nairobi) in Kenya. Further moderating effects of mobile telephone technology was
explored to find out its influence on the health micro insurance uptake. The study target population
comprised 7,399,347 micro and small enterprises while sample size of 1,387 was selected out of the
population using stratified sampling technique. Social capital was found positive and significant (pvalue<
0.05) in relation to health micro insurance uptake. The mobile telephone technology was found positive
and significant (p-value< 0.05) in seven regions while Nairobi region, it was found to be
negative and insignificant (p- value=0.123). The study found that social capital is an important factor
to consider when selling micro insurance products.
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