Empowering Women to get education be skilled and work.
A large proportion of female population in Pakistan has, for a long period, remained out of the workforce because of perdurable social, economic, and political conditions. The stereotypical role of females as homemakers is framed in their households and reassured through the education system and the media of the country. To ensure the peculiar social and economic benefits of including women in the society, Pakistan must look for innovative or successful solutions adopted by other developing countries to increase the mobility of women in the workforce. Among others, these solutions include increasing the literacy for women in Pakistan by tackling some of the key low-demand issues for women’s education.
When exploring the economic, political, or social weaknesses that fence the low economic growth of Pakistan, one of the most critical factors is gender inequality because it has its gloomy effects in every domain of the society. Historically, as an orthodox-developing state, Pakistan has failed to change its social and political settings that give rise to gender inequality and eventually contribute to the inactive economic growth of Pakistan. While the developed world is heading towards more progressive economies, developing states like Pakistan are yet to address fundamental issues like the inclusion of women in the workforce. Furthermore, because of a considerable population of women in Pakistan, it is imperative to include them in the workforce and provide them with fair chances to showcase their skills, which will contribute to the economy’s progress. The participation of women in the workforce is very low in Pakistan. This can be seen from the fact that “28 women for every 100 men participate in the labor force in Pakistan — this compares to 64 women for every 100 men globally and is the lowest in the world outside the middle east”.
The graph, A-1, also substantiates the low female labor force participation in Pakistan (around 0.28 compared to men) in comparison with the given set of countries. In due course, it is vital to include those missing women in the workforce. Moreover, the scale of the problem of gender inequality is augmented by primarily the social factors but relevant parts of the political economy also contribute to the amplification of the problem. For example, the indirect election system for women (or the reserved seats for women) in the parliament of Pakistan shows the dependence of women from reserved seat on elected members of their political party (mostly men) and not their own credibility. So, the problem of the participation of women in the workforce can be divided into two parts. First, the hindrance that the women face before entering the workforce. This also includes the lack of skills, training, and the education necessary for entering the workforce that women in Pakistan receive. Second, women face inequality within the workforce as well. This also includes wage gaps, or the workplace harassment that women in Pakistan go through. Additionally, the inclusion of women in the workforce has both micro and macro-level effects. At the macro level, women’s employment has an additional benefit to the growth of the economy as more of the population is contributing to the economy of the country. However, at the micro-level, gender-balanced economies bring out more innovative skills on the table because women and men bring different skills and perspectives to the workplace.
We will try to provide solutions to the problems of women entering in the workforce : lack of participation,education, inequality in the workforce, and the social norms around the participation of women in the workforce.
Education and Role of media
After analyzing the socio-economic conditions of Pakistan, it is observed that there is a dire need to resolve the crisis of low female participation rate in Pakistan via policies that come across the social, economic, and political climate of the country. To begin with, the problem lying at the heart of low participation rate women in Pakistan is the low literacy rate for women in Pakistan.. Apart from other vital factors, the low demand for women’s education in Pakistan does not allow women to enter the workforce. Therefore, for increasing the demand for education, positive images of educated, working women should be promoted through the media to the masses. Different skills can also be taught to women by skilled women workers to earn and make their living better.
The table also explains the effects of television on the preferences of households. In the context of Pakistan, this could be achieved through the promotion of media elements that portray the positive impact of working women on the living and social standards of a household, which will be influential in countering the social and religious norms set for women.Therefore,targeting the low schooling participation of women through the positive portrayal of women in the media is required.
