Female labor force participation in Pakistan is still well below levels in other countries with similar incomes despite growing by more than half over the past 2 decades.

In Pakistan, women work primarily in the home or on the farm. Their participation in work outside these areas, particularly in formal employment, is extremely low. It is possible that some forms of work by Pakistani women may be undercounted in surveys, as a large proportion of survey respondents may be working in agriculture or doing informal work at home, which is not counted and reported as work. However, the study analysis of the 2007 Pakistan Time Use Survey suggests that this is not a major driver of the patterns. The survey evidence clearly indicates that a very low proportion of Pakistani women work outside the home, where best-paid work opportunities abound.

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; and (iii) the quality of available transport services.