Women’s participation in labour increasing

The information has been disclosed by a country-wide data being compiled for the State of Pakistani Cities report

ISLAMABAD: Country-wide data being compiled for the State of Pakistani Cities report has revealed that women participation in the labour force had increased amid rapid rural to urban movement of labour.

This was information was disclosed during a meeting of experts who are working on the cities report. The meeting was held by UN-Habitat in Islamabad on Thursday to mark the culmination of provincial consultative meetings.



The Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC), with technical assistance from the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and funded by the government of Australia, is working on the State of Pakistani Cities report. The report will support planners, administrators, and decision-makers by providing them with information for designing effective urban solutions without leaving out vital segments of the urban society.

Climate Change Ministry Secretary Syed Abu Akif highlighted that urbanisation was one of the key challenges faced by Pakistan today. However, he noted that it also offered opportunities, which could be tapped through calculated measures.

However, he said that insufficient knowledge of the urban dynamics was resulting in a lack of timely service delivery, resource allocation, and urban solutions by cities’ authorities.



He added that data for the State of Pakistan’s Cities report had been compiled with support from all the provinces. He further said that the provinces had expressed their intention to produce State of Provincial Cities reports as well.

Akif said that the data showed that with the exception of Quetta, where joint and extended families still prevail, the average household size had shrunk in all the other cities, suggesting a trend towards smaller families.

Another trend that emerged was that women’s participation rate in the labour force in all ten cities reviewed for the report had increased.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2017.