Pakistan continues to face significant challenges in achieving gender equality, ranking 145. Out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2024. The only country ranked Lower is Sudan. In contrast, neighboring Bangladesh ranks 99. And India is at 129th place.

The WEF report emphasizes that although global gender parity on economic and political spheres has improved since the report’s start in 2006, Pakistan is still behind. The report notes, “despite the fact that it makes up almost half of the population, women face the South Asian country against significant economic and social differences.”

According to the report, only 36% of women in Pakistan participate in financial activities and only 23% are part of the workforce. More than 40 million women remain outside the workforce. This reflects Pakistan’s low level of economic parity, where women earn 18% less than men. The report also explains, “for every RS1,000 that a man earns, a woman receives only RS818 for the same work.”

A report from the World Bank also highlights the significant gender difference in wages and job opportunities. It emphasizes that although government and business actions are crucial, the scope and stability of these interventions remains inadequate in light of ongoing transformations.

“Economies cannot risk falling afterwards and throwing millions of women and girls back in times of strife and needs,” the WEF study emphasizes.

The genital wage gap is particularly striking in Pakistan’s agricultural sector, where 68% of employed women work, yet 76% of them do it without pay. This contrasts with only 24% of men who work without pay in the same sector.

The study also reveals the under-representation of women in leadership roles across corporate and industrial sectors. In management positions, only 0.14% are women compared to 2.33% of men, which emphasizes the deeply rooted gender inequality in workplaces over Pakistan.

The WEF report further compares Pakistan to Sri Lanka, which has a very fair professional and technical workforce (96.8%), while Pakistan shows a significant gender imbalance in favor of men (35.8%).

South Asia, as a region, ranks as the second lowest in educational achievement with a score of 94.5%, 2.5 percentage points lower than its 2023 performance. This decline is largely attributed to hanging holes in highly populated countries such as Pakistan, which has a literacy of 67%compared to Nepal’s 78%. There are also significant gaps in registration across educational levels in Pakistan.

The WEF report requires significant improvements in economic gender parity to ensure that women have unbound access to resources, opportunities and decision making.

“Governments are encouraged to expand and strengthen the frameworks needed for business and civil society to work together to make gender parity an economically imperative – one that meets the most basic need and inspires the very edges of innovation,” the report concludes.