Background: Malaria remains one of the most severe diseases facing Sub-Saharan African. The global
incidence of the disease is estimated at 350 to 500 million clinical cases annually, resulting in 1.5 to 2.7
million deaths each year in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia. In Kenya, malaria is the leading cause of
morbidity and accounts for 19 per cent of hospital admissions and between 30-50% of outpatient cases in
public health institutions. In addition to its health effect, the disease imposes serious social and economic
burden on individuals and households. It is also estimated that the total cost burden due to malaria in Africa
increased from US dollars 1.8 billion in 1995 to US dollars 2 billion. While a great deal of research effort has
been placed on the cost burden of malaria on households, comparatively little research, particularly in Kenya,
has investigated the impact of malaria on wage earnings. Even rarer in previous work is the failure to address
the endogeneity problem of malaria when estimating the effect of the disease on wage earnings. The
objective of this study was to provide empirical evidence of the impact of malaria on wage earnings among
households in Kenya.