There are few moments more sobering than discovering what your life's work is officially worth. After decades of employment, years of compulsory deductions from every salary, and the assurance that these contributions would one day provide dignity in old age, I finally encountered the reality of Pakistan's Employees' Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI). It was not merely disappointing. It was heartbreaking.

This was my second visit to Awami Markaz on Shahrah-e-Faisal where the EOBI Head Office for Karachi is located. I got up early and took a cab to avoid parking issues, traffic rush and queues later in the day. A visit to a government office always means hassle, so I took a bottle of cold water with me, fingers crossed that this would be the final chapter. Earlier, misguided by well-meaning but misinformed colleagues and friends, and indifferent EOBI staff, I had gone back and forth between Awami Markaz and the EOBI Korangi office in Karachi’s sweltering heat.

It had all started when, after the latest inflation spike, my friends advised me to get my EOBI sorted out. Even though it would be little, it would help with utility bills etc.

Walking through the stale air of the paan- and gutka-splattered, dingy passageways in Awami Markaz, I grimaced, breathing in the stale air.

I was distracted by voices as people stepped aside to make way for two men slowly walking towards the grimy, rickety lift that carried visitors to the shopping mall's third floor where the EOBI office is located. A tall, broad-shouldered man, visibly struggling for breath, leaned heavily on the arm of his son, who was supporting him with quiet patience. On reaching the lift, the older man stopped, placing both hands against the wall to steady himself and catch his breath. Several minutes later, his son, assisted by another man, gently helped him into the lift.

Why are government facilities that serve the public located on the third floor of a shopping mall, and in such a deplorable state? I thought.

Once on the third floor, it was apparent that no one here came to work on time. The director-general’s chair with a towel hung across the back was empty, the AC chilled the room, the peon and security guard snoozed outside. For the second visit, I arrived a little later. Some pensioners and their companions sat on the chairs facing two empty desks.

Much earlier than the EOBI office starts serving people, I had joined a steadily growing crowd of shabbily dressed people clutching files and papers, awaiting their turn. Much later than they should have been in their seats, the officers arrived at their desks. It was a big room with seating in rows and two desks placed in front at a distance from each other. As I sat there, drinking from my water bottle, I noticed that both officers who arrived late, one after the other, were unkempt and dishevelled as though to match the surroundings. The thin bespectacled man had an expression on his face as though he was being punished. The other overweight one with a traditional mirrored cap and untidy beard looked calm, too calm, actually, for there were at least 20 people waiting for him to get his act together. He stared at the monitor, called out to an invisible person to bring him paper and fiddled with his mouse. I wondered if he was aware of the sprawling mass of tangled cables twiste]d into one another like an enormous serving of overcooked noodles, held together by nothing, apparently. It bothered no one. Neither did the files carelessly strewn across the floor containing the names, account numbers and working lives of pensioners, as though decades of honest labour could be tossed aside as casually as discarded paper. There were no drawers, no cabinets.

“Apka kya hai,” they randomly began to ask the people seated in rows. The people would mumble something in reply, to which they would randomly be gestured to come to the desk. No greetings, no smiles. Indifferent stares for men, slightly engaging ones for women.

When my turn finally came, the conversation with the straggly-bearded official, a certain Mr MM, didn’t last very long. My organisation filed for my EOBI card a year after my employment. I celebrated my 55th birthday in the same organisation, and completed 15 years of service there. Since I claimed my dues three years later because of some unavoidable circumstances such as the pandemic and sick parents etc., my arrears of three years had accumulated. “You will get arrears only for six months, which will be a lump sum grant.”

The numbers jumbled in my head — 15, 55, 6. What’s going on here? I thought.

A minute later he slapped a paper, which was some sort of receipt, in front of me. Rs88,000 lump sum grant, it said. Less than a monthly salary. As the shock hit me, I could hear his voice at a distance.

“You will open an account in a specified bank and then they will give you an ATM card to draw the money.”

The whole rigmarole for a one-time withdrawal; couldn’t they give a pay order or send it to my bank account? I thought as I got up and left, calm but silently cursing my life, the system, him and whoever. This is it, I thought. Who decided my EOBI fate like this? Who makes the decisions here, and on what grounds?

When I visited two branches of the specified bank the following afternoon, they were happy to open an account for me but cautioned that EOBI had not provided ATM cards to the bank for some time, and that I should enquire next month.

Next month came and went, yet there is still no system to ensure when EOBI cards would arrive at any branch of the designated bank. The bank requests cards at random, they arrive at random, and pensioners can spend a lifetime making fruitless trips to check whether theirs has finally turned up. The fact that pensioners may have accessibility, and finance issues is brutally overlooked. It feels like an exasperating game of Monopoly where the dice stubbornly refuses to give you the number you need, leaving you trapped on the same square, waiting endlessly for a turn that never seems to come. For seniors with financial and accessibility issues, it is an endless nightmare.

Later I realised that my story was not unusual. It was the story of hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who spent their working lives believing they were investing in security, only to discover that the safety net beneath them had almost disappeared.

The Employees' Old-Age Benefits Institution was conceived as one of Pakistan's most important social protection programmes. Workers and employers would contribute throughout an employee's career, allowing retired workers to receive a monthly pension once they reached retirement age. It was intended to ensure that those who had spent decades building the country's economy would not spend old age worrying about their next meal.

Half a century later, that promise appears increasingly fragile.

Today the minimum monthly EOBI pension stands at just Rs11,500 — an amount that struggles to buy even a week's groceries or cover a utility bill for many households. Add medicine, transport, rent and food, and the amount becomes almost symbolic rather than meaningful. Ironically, it is lower than the Rs13,500 received monthly by beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Programme, a welfare initiative designed for the poorest citizens. The comparison is difficult to ignore. People who spent decades contributing to a pension scheme receive less than those receiving social assistance without having made payroll contributions.

Yet workers have not failed to contribute. Every month throughout their employment, deductions are made from their salaries under the assumption that these payments are building a secure future. Employers also contribute their share. But somewhere between those deductions and retirement, the promise begins to unravel.

Women lose twice

The contradiction is striking. Women constitute an important segment of Pakistan's labour force, yet many remain invisible within the country's principal old-age protection system. IT Comes across as a policy flaw that discrminates against the female workforce. The system is refusing to acknowledge their service and also denying their rights.

About 20 per cent of the country’s total labour force consists of females who are playing a vital role in the development and production process of the country. Unfortunately though, due to negligence on the part of the government as well as employers, women face multiple disadvantages under the current EOBI framework as well. The retirement age for women under EOBI remains 55 years, five years earlier than the retirement age of 60 for men. On paper this may appear to be a benefit. In practice it shortens the period during which women can accumulate contributions, reducing their potential pension entitlement.

Many Pakistani women also experience interrupted careers due to marriage, childbirth and caregiving responsibilities. Since EOBI requires at least fifteen years of insurable service to qualify for a pension, these career breaks can mean decades of work that produce no pension at all.

The broader labour market tells a similar story. Most employed women work in agriculture, while significant numbers are concentrated in education, healthcare, garment production and food processing. These sectors contribute substantially to the economy, yet many workers retire without meaningful social security.

Large numbers of women never even enter the system. Most female workers are employed in agriculture, home-based work or other informal sectors that fall outside compulsory EOBI registration. Even in the formal economy, employers frequently fail to register female employees to avoid making contributions.

An institution in crisis

In what seems to be an administrative paralysis, the organisation has been operating at only 40 percent of its designated workforce. Key leadership positions, including the chairman, have frequently been vacant or managed by temporary acting officials for extended periods.

Pensioners and labour rights groups have voiced extreme concern, demanding that the minimum pension be increased to Rs 50,000 monthly to meet basic household expenses in the current economy.

Stuck in another era

As the number of pensioners increases amid dwindling monthly collections, a recent actuarial valuation report has warned that the fund may stand exhausted in the next 10 years.

Despite a fund volume of Rs650 billion, there is hardly any professional expert of pension fund management, actuary and fund investment in either the EOBI board or management. The federal government needs to take necessary steps urgently.

Pakistan's ageing population makes these shortcomings increasingly urgent. Old age should represent the reward for decades of labour, not the beginning of financial insecurity. A pension is not charity. It is deferred income earned through years of work and mandatory contributions. When that pension becomes insufficient to meet even the most basic living expenses, the system fails the very people it was created to protect.

Since the 1976 law has fallen out of step with modern labour dynamics, the Centre for Labour Research (CLR) proposed the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Bill 2026. This newly drafted legislation seeks to comprehensively overhaul and repeal the 1976 law by extending coverage to self-employed and platform workers, and by introducing structural reforms to secure the institution's future.

The government must strengthen employer compliance, restore institutional capacity, modernise fund management, widen coverage to include excluded workers and reconsider pension levels in light of today's economic realities. The gender disparities built into the system also deserve urgent review if retirement security is to be equitable.

For those of us who eventually collect our pensions, the issue is deeply personal. The disappointment is measured not simply in rupees but in expectations. We believed that every deduction from our salaries was an investment in dignity. Instead, many discover that dignity in old age has been replaced by bureaucracy and neglect. Pakistan's workers deserve better—and they have already paid for it.