South Asian Media Net

The status of women in Pakistan is not homogenous because of the interconnection of gender with other forms of exclusion in the society. There is considerable diversity in the status of women across classes, regions, and the rural/urban divide due to uneven socioeconomic development and the impact of tribal, feudal, and capitalist social formations on women’s lives. However, women’s situation vis-à-vis men is one of systemic subordination, determined by the forces of patriarchy across classes, regions, and the rural/urban divide.
Gender is one of the organizing principles of Pakistani society. Patriarchal values embedded in local traditions and culture predetermine the social value of gender. An artificial divide between production and reproduction, created by the ideology of sexual division of labor, has placed women in reproductive roles as mothers and wives in the private arena of home and men in a productive role as breadwinners in the public arena. This has led to a low level of resource investment in women by the family and the State. Thus, low investment in women’s human capital, compounded by the ideology of purdah (literally “veiled”), negative social biases, and cultural practices; the concept of honor linked with women’s sexuality; restrictions on women’s mobility; and the internalization of patriarchy by women themselves, becomes, the basis for gender discrimination and disparities in all
spheres of life.

Demographic Background

Pakistan is a federation of four provinces conjoined with the federal capital area, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA),
and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. According to the census conducted in March 1998, the total population of the country is 130.6 million with an annual growth rate of 2.6 percent. About 55.6 percent of this population is in Punjab, 23 percent in Sindh, 13.4 percent in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), 5 percent in Balochistan, 2.4 percent in FATA, and 0.6 percent in Islamabad. Women form 48 percent of the total population and 52 percent are men. The population of women
has increased slightly more than the population of men. The latest intercensal average growth rate per annum is estimated at 2.6 percent for women and 2.5 percent for men during 1981–1998.
According to the 1998 census data, 88 million people live in rural areas, whereas 42 million live in urban areas. The data revealed that 45 percent of the population are below 15 years of age. About 52 percent of adolescents are male and 48 percent are female.

The Social and Cultural Context

The social and cultural context of Pakistani society is predominantly patriarchal. Men and women are conceptually divided into two separate worlds. Home is defined as a woman’s legitimate ideological and physical space, while a man dominates the world outside the home. The false ideological demarcation between public and private, inside and outside worlds is maintained through the notion of honor and institution of purdah in Pakistan. Since the notion of male honor and izzat (honor) is linked with women's sexual behavior, their sexuality is considered a potential threat to the honor of the family.
Therefore, women’s mobility is strictly restricted and controlled through the system of purdah, sex segregation, and violence against them. In the given social context, Pakistani women lack social value and status because of negation of their roles as producers and providers in all social roles. The preference for sons due to their productive role dictates the allocation of household resources in their favor. Male members of the family are given better education and are equipped with skills to compete for resources in the public arena, while female members are imparted domestic skills to be good mothers and wives. Lack of skills, limited opportunities in the job market, and social and cultural restrictions limit women’s
chances to compete for resources in the public arena. This situation has led to the social and economic dependency of women that becomes the basis for male power over women in all social relationships.
However, the spread of patriarchy is not even. The nature and degree of women’s oppression/subordination vary across classes, regions, and the rural/urban divide. Patriarchal structures are relatively stronger in the rural and tribal setting where local customs establish male authority and power over women’s lives. Women are exchanged, sold, and bought in marriages. They are given limited opportunities to create choices for themselves in order to change the realities of their
lives. On the other hand, women belonging to the upper and middle classes have increasingly greater access to education and employment opportunities and can assume greater control over their lives.
The most powerful aspect of social and cultural context is the internalization of patriarchal norms by men and women. In learning to be a woman in the society, women internalize the
patriarchal ideology and play an instrumental role in transferring and recreating the gender ideology through the process of socialization of their children. This aspect of women’s lives has been largely ignored by the development initiatives in the country.

Economic Situation

Women in Pakistan participate fully in economic activities in the productive and reproductive sphere. The economic value of women’s activities in the reproductive sphere and unpaid work as a family laborer in the productive sphere has not been recognized as productive and is not accounted for in the national statistics.
The labor force participation rates for women are grossly underreported by the official sources of data. The 1997 Labour Force Survey reported the refined activity rate11 for women as 13.6 percent and 70 percent for men, while the crude activity rate12 was 9 percent and 47 percent, respectively. This is due to problems in data collection such as an inappropriate definition of economic activity, male enumerators who get information regarding working women from the male members of the family, questions seeking information on a single main activity, and exclusion of the
informal sector. In the cultural context of Pakistan, women’s wage work is considered a threat to the male ego and identity and women’s engagement in multiple home-based economic activities leads to underremuneration for their work. Pakistani girls and women spend long hours fetching water, doing laundry, preparing food, and carrying out agricultural duties. Not only are these tasks physically hard and demanding, they also rob girls of the opportunity to study.
The nature and sphere of women’s productivity in the labor market is largely determined by sociocultural and economic factors. Women do not enter the labor market on equal terms vis-à-vis men. Their occupational choices are limited due to social and cultural constraints, inherent gender bias in the labor market, and lack of supportive facilities such as child care, transport, and accommodation in the formal sector of the labor market. Women’s labor power is considered inferior
because of employers’ predetermined notion of women’s primary role as homemakers. As a result of discrimination against female labor, women are concentrated in the secondary sector of labor market.
Their work is low paid, low status, casual, and lacks potential upward mobility. Women are overwhelmingly concentrated in the agriculture sector, which employs 79 percent of female labor force as compared with 57.3 percent of male workers. Nearly 36–38 percent ofeconomically active rural women work on their own family farms. The majority of women in the urban sector work in low-paying jobs. In 1996–1997, in urban areas 62.2 percent of female workers were employed in the service sector followed by the manufacturing sector (21.9 percent) and professional workers (21.9 percent). Among the Federal Government civil servants, 44.3 percent are working in basic pay scale grade 9 and below, while not a single women is working in grade 22, which is the highest basic pay scale in Pakistan.

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