Wasted female doctors

Over one-third of women in Pakistan who are qualified to work as medical doctors do not actually practise medicine, according to a new survey. This is despite a major nationwide shortage of doctors in general and female doctors in particular — many women still refuse to be treated by male doctors, even for serious conditions. Given the doctor shortage, it is clear that the vast majority of these women doctors are not “unemployed”, as many reports on the data suggest, but willfully underemployed or otherwise outside the workforce.

One of the most common reasons for being out of the workforce is also the most disappointing — ‘doctor brides’, or women who only studied medicine to improve their chances of ‘marrying well’, as it is proof of the woman’s intelligence, while also remaining in line with the archaic belief that women, especially married ones, should not work. To add insult to injury, many of these women went to government universities, where they essentially stole from the state, which subsidised their education in the expectation that it would get a return in the form of their medical services. They also took a subsidised spot from someone who may have then had to give up on studying medicine unless they could afford an expensive private university. This essentially doubles the impact of them not working.

The situation is not unique to Pakistan or the Muslim world, but the extent certainly is. Women’s participation in the workforce, especially in ‘respected’ professions such as medicine, is significantly higher in almost every other Muslim country except ultra-conservative Afghanistan and a few oil-rich kingdoms.

The government needs to institute some form of work requirement as a condition for attending public medical universities. Women — or men — who refuse to practise medicine after going to taxpayer-subsidised medical school should be forced to pay back a significant share of that subsidy, or face serious penalties if they don’t. Let their spouses bear the cost of their medical degrees.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13^th, 2023.

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