What do people earn?

Average wage is highest in the least employing tertiary activities and lowest in primary activities

Pakistan’s monthly income per capita was Rs15,017 in 2017-18, close to the minimum wage of Rs15,000. This is an average of the employed and the unemployed, the rich as well as the poor. Labour Force Survey for the same year gives the average wage of the employed at Rs18,754. Again, there is no rich-poor distinction here but the amount is still lower than a living wage.

The average also hides the gender disparity: women earn 60 per cent of what men earn. Finance, insurance, real estate and business services command the highest average wage of Rs40,178. Next highest wage of Rs27,600 is earned by workers in electricity, gas and water. Together with mining and quarrying with the fourth highest wage of Rs23,843, these tertiary activities contribute less than 2 per cent of the total employment, with a negligible share of women.

The lowest average wage of Rs9,645 is earned by women in agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing. These primary activities absorb the largest proportion of the employed, i.e. 38.5 per cent. The largest proportion of women workers is also engaged in these activities. Of the 27.64 million employed, 33 per cent are women. Average wage for women was nearly half (Rs6,007) of what men got (Rs11,806).

In 2014-15, average wage for women was higher (Rs6,345) and that for men lower (Rs9,041). This is partly because of a decline in the share of the primary activities in total employment from 42.3 per cent to 38.5 per cent. This decline reflects neglect of agriculture, not structural change.

The major share of the 3.8 percentage points decline of employment in the primary activities has been gained by wholesale and retail trade (2.3 percentage points) and transport/storage and communication (0.8 percentage points). Average wage in these activities was Rs14,541 and Rs21,338, respectively. Community/social and personal services witnessed a decline in the share of total employment, but enjoyed the third highest average wage of Rs25,530. Of the total employed women, 14.4 per cent are engaged in this activity, making it the third largest employer of women.

This share is up from 11.3 per cent in the previous survey. It seems that women moving out of agriculture mostly shifted here as average wage increased from Rs14,493 to Rs18,012. However, this was still far less than men’s average wage of Rs31,223.

Manufacturing and construction, the so-called hope for greater employment, increased their share in total employment from 15.3 per cent to 16.1 per cent and 7.3 per cent to 7.6 per cent. While the share from employed women in construction is negligible, it is almost equal to that of men in manufacturing; 16 per cent of the employed women are in manufacturing against 16.1 per cent of employed men. When it comes to wages, this relative equality breaks down completely. Men pocket three times the women’s wage, with an average wage of Rs18,687 against women’s average wage of Rs6,597. We are not talking about small numbers here that can lead to a misleading outcome due to sampling error.

The number of employed men in manufacturing was 7.76 million and for women 2.17 million. But the higher wage for women in wholesale and retail trade and restaurants and hotels and transport, besides storage and communication, is most certainly a sampling error.

Average wage is the highest in the least employing tertiary activities and the lowest in the most employing primary activities. Secondary activities stand in the middle with a slow place. Gender gap is all pervasive. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2019.

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