Economic growth and development of the nations largely depend on the
quantity and quality of their labour force. In Pakistan, a sizeable segment of
population is considered as out of labour force. For instance, the overall labour force
participation rate for the age 15 years and above remained roughly in the range of 49
percent to 53 percent during 1974-75 to 2012-13. This means that of the total
population in 2012-13, aged 15 years and above, 53 percent is economically active or
part of labour force whereas 47 percent is economically inactive or out of labour
force. And more than 75 percent of the women population is considered as
economically in-active. In addition, the labour market statistics show that a smaller
proportion of women than men, age 15 years and above, are employed. The
unemployment rate among women is higher than men. One of the possible
explanations of this gender gap is gender discrimination in the labour market.
In this context, this paper aims to analyse the behaviour of female and male in
labour force participation by empirically investigating the determinants of labour force
participation, and access to paid job for both female and male. It also shed light on
occupational gender inequalities. It is believed that these types of analyses help
designing better policies to increase employment opportunities for both females and
males. They also facilitate suggesting various practical measures that can be
incorporated in gender sensitised employment policies that in turn could lead towards
greater labour force participation.
The rest of the paper is as follows: Section 2 presents the trend in labour force of
Pakistan; Section 3 gives the both the theoretical and empirical review of literature on
gender discrimination in the labour market; Section 4 describes the empirical strategy
employed in the paper; Section 5 gives the estimated results and Section 7 concludes the
paper by mentioning some relevant policy implications.