Policy Brief on Female Labor Force Participation in Pakistan

Abstract

Key Messages Despite increases in recent years, female labor force participation in Pakistan, at 25%, is well below rates for countries with similar income levels. Even among women with high levels of education, labor force participation lags: only around 25% of women with a university degree in Pakistan are working. This low female labor force participation represents a major loss of potential productivity. It also has important implications for women’s empowerment, as working women are more likely to play a role in household decision making compared with nonworking women in the same villages or even in the same families. The study found that many women in Pakistan would like to work; there are multiple reasons why they do not. One of the key reasons—on which policy could have an effect—is that women face restrictions on their physical mobility outside the home. Several interconnected factors restrict women’s mobility outside the home, among them (i) social, cultural, and religious norms; (ii) safety and crime; quality of available transport services.