British colonization transformed the lives of Kenyans. Among other things it led to the establishment of alien political institutions. Once independence was achieved in the 1960s numerous African leaders emphasized industrialization as the means to achieve rapid economic and social progress. In the 1960s and early 1970s the Kenyan economy performed well, GDP grew, income inequality lessened, and access to education and healthcare expanded dramatically. But, in the 1970s and again in the 1980s Kenya and most of the rest of Africa suffered through oil price shocks and the collapse of prices for most of their exported agricultural products Import substitution industrialization, at the insistence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund quickly turned into its opposite. The Kenyan economy was forced open in return for massive loans from both institutions. Structural adjustment programs followed as did the introduction of so-called Export Processing Zones to encourage foreign direct investment and in theory stimulate the Kenyan economy.; Private companies located in the EPZs were able to hire and sack workers whenever they wished. They were also allowed to ignore the country's minimum wage and other labor laws. This thesis attempts to determine whether the proposed benefits of EPZs were delivered to the Kenyan people. Is the average worker and his or her family better off because of EPZs? Has the larger national economy witnessed greater investments in technology and an increase in the skills required on the job? Can we see the construction of an educational and healthcare infrastructure, stimulated at least in part by the revenues generated from EPZs? Or, is the end result of EPZs the accelerated destruction of families and an increase in working class poverty?
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