Duality of Female Employment in Pakistan

Before proceeding to the main fmdings of the study it isnecessary to briefly mention the problems of data collection on women’semployment in Pakistan. The shortcomings of official data sources suchas the Labour Force Survey and the Population Census have been pointedout in detail elsewhere [Afzal and Nasir (1987); Government of Pakistan(1986)] here it will suffice to state that women’s economicparticipation is greatly underestimated in official statistics mainlydue to unsuitable methods of data collection, inappropriate definitionsof activities and stress on recording only one activity, and thecultural inhibition to admitting to women working. Given these problemsthe present study relies primarily on data from intensive micro-levelsurveys and the Agricultural Census in the case of informal ,sectoremployment of women since the limitations of official data areparticularly ” acute in these occupations, while estimates of changesover time in women’s share of formal sector jobs (professionals,clerical, administrative and organized industry) are mainly based onLabour Force Survey data.