The stalled arrival of working women in Pakistan

The image of twentieth and twenty-first century modernity is the two-income household: a man and a woman both earning an income and perhaps sharing in child-rearing responsibilities. The modal household in Pakistan is also a two-income household, but more often than not, the two incomes come from two related men – a father and son, or two brothers, or even two male cousins. Some households have a man and woman bringing in an income, but not many.

In 2012, then writing for The Express Tribune, this scribe wrote about the rising female labour force participation rate in Pakistan, which had doubled over the first decade of the century. It seemed as though Pakistan’s labour force was about to join that image of modernity.

That revolution in household economic relationships – and the social revolution it would undoubtedly have precipitated – did not come to pass. The female labour force participation rate in 2021, the latest year for which data is available, was at 21.3% of the working age population, according to data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics’ Labour Force Survey, somewhat lower than the 24.4% it reached in 2011.

Effectively, the last decade and a half has seen no changes in the economic status of women in Pakistan, even though some key leading indicators – notably literacy and education – would have predicted a continued rise in labour force participation and income levels.