essay on importance of female education in pakistan

Facing the Challenges of Girls’ Education in Pakistan

Juan d. barón.

Girls’ education is smart economics , and Pakistan has committed to guaranteeing the right of both girls and boys to access quality education ( SDG 4 ).

In fact, Pakistan has dramatically expanded enrollment for girls and boys in the last 14 years. Net enrollment for both has increased by roughly 10 percentage points (Figure 1). With a school-aged population of around 50 million children, there have been substantial gains in the number of children enrolled in school. However, the country faces a number of challenges in ensuring a quality education for all children: 75 percent of 10-year-olds in Pakistan cannot read a simple text, and that rate may have increased to 79 percent due to COVID-19 and the 2022 floods .

Despite progress, girls in Pakistan face more challenges in accessing quality education and their education outcomes lag boys. Bringing more girls and boys to school will require using data to target interventions to specific challenges. At the current pace (which already incorporates strong assumptions on progress), it will take Pakistan at least 50 years to enroll all girls and 31 years to enroll all boys. Below, we present potential solutions to challenges facing girls access to education.

Figure 1. Net enrollment rates by sex (%)

Challenge 1: 12 million girls out of school

About 2 million more girls than boys are out of school in Pakistan–or about 12 million girls in total—and account for most of the out-of-school population in Pakistan. Estimates of the number of out-of-school children in Pakistan range from 20.3 to 22.1 million children.

Solutions. One solution includes using available data and targeting specific programs to specific types of out-of-school children. For example, bringing back young kids who may have dropped out of primary school is a targeted intervention for young kids who were in school, but not for teenage children who may have left the system years ago. A literacy, numeracy, and life skill programs would be a more targeted approach for this group.

Another solution is increasing school supply: Punjab has done it successfully in primary education with public-private partnerships (PPPs). Expanding PPPs to other levels of education and enhancing regulations can deliver big returns. Expanding and better managing public schools in rural areas is another solution, like the SELECT project in the Sindh Province.

Challenge 2: Girls are more likely to have never been to school

In 2018, 26 percent of girls and 19 percent of boys had never been to school, a 7-percentage point difference (Figure 2). Pakistan has made progress compared to 2004, when the difference was 13 percentage points. The effort, however, has left girls in the same position as before relative to boys. Figure 2 shows that in 2018, the number of girls who have never attended school was the same as the number of boys who never attended school in 2004 (14 years earlier).

Solutions . Expanding conditional cash transfers to incentivize parents to send children to school, with a premium on girls, could be effective to enhance early enrollment and reduce gender gaps. Enrollment drives focused on first grades and pre-K enrollment can also be effective.

Figure 2. Children who have never attended school by sex (%)

Challenge 3: Girls in poor families are less likely to attend school

Poverty is a major challenge for girls’ education. Girls in poor families are 22 percentage points less likely to attend school than boys (Figure 3). This gender gap gets narrower with better-off families, ending with no gap for families in the wealthiest quintile, where enrollment is around 87 percent, for both sexes.

Figure 3. School enrollment by sex and household wealth (%)

Moreover, girls in poor families are 52 percentage points less likely to attend school than girls in well-off households (Figure 3). This highlights what families express as the biggest constraint to sending girls to primary school: the cost of education. Girls in rural areas, who are more likely to be in poor households, are also less likely to be enrolled than any other group, including girls in urban areas and boys in both rural and urban areas (Figure 4). Girls in rural areas are the most disadvantaged group.

Solutions. Pakistan has recently expanded the conditional cash transfer program to all districts in the country and has had girls’ stipend programs with positive outcomes. Expanding and consolidating this financial support to families—differentiating by gender and rural areas—could help in closing these gaps. These financial conditionalities will only work if there are enough schools available, which is not the case in many rural areas of Pakistan. For example, there are nearly 130,000 primary schools in rural Pakistan, but only 33,000 middle schools, leaving many middle school-aged students in rural areas without education options after primary school.

Figure 4. In all provinces, girls of all ages in rural areas are less likely to be in school than boys

Challenge 4: Security of girls and women at school

Girls face harassment in school and on the way to school. They face challenges to their security in public spaces, transportation, and near schools. Girls express anguish at all types of harassment in these spaces, the Center for Gender and Policy Studies reports. Given this, parents in Pakistan either delay girls’ education or prevent them from attending school altogether. The second most important reason parents give for not sending girls to school is the distance to schools, which is a factor that exacerbates parents’ security concerns: the more distant the school, the more risk for girls.

Solutions . Improving transport services for girls and female teachers, as has been done in KP Province , and making school safe for students (for example, building boundary walls in schools).

What’s next?

Pakistan has shown that increased enrollment for girls is possible even in a context of high population growth. To accelerate progress, programs could be based on cost-effectiveness, potential for scale, and new research. For example, countries can advance girls’ education through un-targeted programs as effectively as targeted programs, as outlined in research by Evans & Yuan . This is true in some domains, but targeted interventions would work best for specific constraints faced by girls. The above potential solutions reflect both.

Solutions, however, require adequate and well-executed funding. Pakistan spends 2.5 percent of its GDP on education, far from the 4 percent international average. Reducing gaps and ensuring that all children, in particular girls, have access to quality education would require at least 4.5 percent of GDP, the World Bank estimates.

Senior Economist, Education Global Practice, World Bank Group

Senior Consultant

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Empowering Girls through Education in Pakistan

Opportunity EduFinance’s partners in Pakistan have a wide range of expertise and varied approaches to their work. And yet, a recent interview with several Pakistan financial institutions and stakeholders in the education sector found all were motivated by very similar understandings of the limitations in enhancing access to education across Pakistan – especially for girls.

To better appreciate these motivations and develop a deeper understanding of possible solutions to address barriers to girls education, we ‘virtually’ sat down with several Pakistani institutions to learn more.   

In your view, what are the biggest barriers to girls' education in Pakistan?

AYESHA SALMA KARIAPPER,  Group Head Quality Assurrance, Research and Design, Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF)

In Pakistan, an estimated 22.5 million children are out of school , of which the majority are girls. Thirty-two percent (32%) of primary school age girls are out of school, compared with 21% of boys. This gender gap differential persists into middle school, and by grade nine merely 13% of young women are still enrolled in school.

The insufficient supply of middle and high schools within accessible distance is a major barrier for girls in rural areas. Similarly, the lack of adequate sanitation facilities particularly impacts girls’ retention rates in middle and high schools. Girls from poor communities living in remote, rural areas are especially vulnerable.

ROSHANEH ZAFAR, Founder/Managing Director, Kashf Foundation

The perceptions that investing in girls’ education does not result in the economic uplift of families deters parents from sending girls to school. When families violate these norms, they can face extreme pressure and hostility from their community and often discontinue their girls’ education when they hit puberty due to fear of harassment, social stigmas and disapproval.

There is a high need for quality education financing for schools. Global funders and local investors need to actively play a role in making resources available to build middle and higher secondary schools, at public as well as private sector level. Girls’ education should be incentivized by subsidizing school fees or by providing stipends at every level. Awareness of the importance of educating women and girls and the impact it has on family needs to be raised. 

DR. SUGHRA CHOUDRY, Senior Advisor Education/ECD & HUMAIRA NASEER,  Program Manager Education, Aga Khan Foundation (AKF)

Poor economic conditions of families result in their inability to cover the hidden costs of schooling and forces many girls to help with income-generating or household chores. Low incomes and consistently negative cash flows affects the ability of parents to pay school fees and provide continuous support to girls while in school. There is also limited access to vulnerable populations such as nomadic communities, internally displaced communities, and children with disabilities. There are extreme regional inequalities, and the gap between the relatively rich and the poor regions appears to be growing. COVID-19 has exacerbated the situation with a great demand on girls at home, endangering a return to school.

KASHIF MIRZA, President, All Pakistan Private Schools Federation (APPSF)

Some families do not believe that girls should be educated or they believe girls should not study beyond a certain age. Attitudes regarding girls’ education vary significantly across different communities. Many people, however, describe growing acceptance of the value of girls’ education, even in conservative communities; the government should encourage this change.

For many parents, the most fundamental barrier to sending their children to school is poverty. Children—usually girls—are kept home to do housework in the family home or are employed as domestic workers. Poverty also results in early marriages of girls: in Pakistan, 21% of girls marry before age 18, and 3% marry before age 15.

GHAZANFAR AZZAM, CEO, Mobilink Microfinance Bank Limited (MMBL)

Pakistan ranks 153 out of 156 in the  Global Gender Gap Report and according to UN Women , 53.6% of women are deprived of education, training, and employment in Pakistan, compared to only 7.4% of men. Dismal as reports may look, it is a wake-up call for us as a nation to take strident steps towards improving the fortunes of our female population and empower them to become equal contributors in the economic progress of our country.

One of the main challenges currently befalling the education sector in Pakistan is the lack of funding. Financial institutions should do their part by developing tailored lending products for schools that would allow them to undertake much-needed improvements, hire and train staff, adopt digitized learning methods, and enable them to survive financial crunches safely.

SAQIB SIDDIQUI, Head of Sector Development, & MUHAMMAD FAHEEM KHALID,  Manager Sector Development, Pakistan Microfinance Investment Company (PMIC)

There are many reasons because of which girl’s access to education gets adversely impacted, including poverty and cultural barriers. Sexual harassment is also a fundamental issue faced by girls while going to and from school. Due to this a lot of girls do not want to continue their education and drop out. In order to counter this issue, safe and secure transport should be arranged for girls by school management and school leaders need to invest heavily in the safety and security of their premises.

What is your organization doing that may address access and the gender disparities in education?

To ensure and improve female enrolment in schools, Kashf’s school improvement loans are only disbursed to schools with minimum 40% female student ratio, with a promise to increase with each subsequent loan year. Kashf’s policy is to disburse 50% school improvement loans to female school owners who are seen to be more passionate about improving the situation for girls’ education in the country.

Kashf Foundation has conducted interactive sessions with teachers and school owners that are part of the Kashf School Sarmaya program to create awareness of child sexual abuse. This includes: how to tackle and identify problems associated with it, training teachers on the concept of strangers, physical and emotional abuse, negligence on the part of family members, and providing an implementation plan for a safe school environment, with aims to develop an understanding relationship between the student and teacher.

AYESHA SALMA KARIAPPER, Group Head Quality Assurrance, Research and Design, PPAF

To counter these challenges, in 2016, PPAF established girls’ schools in the under-resourced districts  of Killa Abdullah, UC Zharaband, and Baluchistan. Since these villages did not have any schools before PPAF’s initiative, the biggest challenge in opening schools was the limited availability of local teachers. After motivating and consulting with communities, a few local male and female teachers were recruited in three newly established schools and within two months 50 girls were enrolled in these schools.

To further combat the problem of accessibility to education for girls in rural areas, PPAF initiated the Chamalang Education Programme, Baluchistan. Under the programme, 3,000 children of coal miners were admitted to private schools in Kohlu, Loralai and Quetta. As a result, between 2010 and 2020, these schools metamorphosed from crumbling facilities with 200 children, to schools bustling with 2,000 children who would use laboratories, libraries and activity rooms managed by a qualified team of school-based supervisors.

Now over 120 students have completed grade 10, and thus creating possibilities for a brighter future. There was also a transformation in the behaviour of parents and children. Not only did the parents willingly send their daughters to school, they also considered them as assets rather than burdens.

GHAZANFAR AZZAM, CEO, MMBL

In January 2021,  MMBL partnered with Opportunity International Edufinance to increase access to education through school financing that links all Pakistani non-state schools to affordable capital . The product was designed for school owners with financing options to build new classrooms and infrastructure, source necessary ICT and safety equipment, and actively invest in improving the quality of education and learning environments. In a country where only 21% of the population is financially included and poverty is rampant, enhancing access to finance is also imperative so that families can access education.

VEON, MMBL's parent company, is a strong supporter of women's empowerment and the education of girls and launched the Jazz Smart School Program in 2018, aimed at improving digital skills and literacy among female students through the use of mobile technology and a blended learning approach. By the end of the two-year pilot, more than 38,000 female students between 12 and 16 years, and over 1,000 female teachers had benefited. Program evaluation showed significant improvements in learning outcomes, teaching quality, student engagement, technology users, accountability, and results monitoring.

KASHIF MIRZA, President, APPSF

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, 13 million children have dropped out of non-state schools, 60% were girls. All Pakistan Private Schools Federation is playing an important role by supporting the education of girl students and the jobs of more than 1.5 million female teachers in the 207,000 private schools across the country.

There is a need to invest more resources in education and use those resources to address gender disparities. APPSF has partnered with Opportunity EduFinance to introduce APPSF member schools seeking finance to financial institutions offering school improvement loan products. It’s important to note that more than 50% of school owners in Pakistan are women.

SAQIB SIDDIQUI, Head of Sector Development, & MUHAMMAD FAHEEM KHALID,  Manager Sector Development, PMIC

Affordable private schools do not have access to adequate financing. There is a role for the private sector to increase access to finance for these schools. PMIC is working with its MFI partners and Opportunity EduFinance to develop products for the sector. School management need to invest in the safety and security of their premises and safe transport to increase girl enrolment. Considering the enrolment numbers for girls as compared to boys, it is important to allocate separate funding windows for establishing more girl schools and colleges.

Opportunity EduFinance looks forward to continuing work with these partners and stakeholders to increase access to quality education in Pakistan, which we agree is crucial for girls' future opportunities and for the benefit of society as a whole.

BIOGRAPHIES

Ghazanfar azzam, ceo, mmbl.

Ghazanfar Azzam is the CEO of Mobilink Microfinance Bank Limited, Pakistan’s largest digital bank with over 27 million registered users. MMBL is a leading player in lending to small and medium-sized enterprises and combines traditional microfinance with mobile/ digital banking technologies. MMBL was recently awarded 'Digital Microfinance Bank of the Year' by CFA Society Pakistan in 2020.

Roshaneh Zafar, Founder/Managing Director, Kashf Foundation

Roshaneh Zafar is the founder and managing director of Kashf Foundation, Pakistan’s first specialised Microfinance institution supporting women micro-entrepreneurs with financial and non-financial services. Kashf Foundation is SMART certified and recently won COVID-19 Action Award at the UN women Asia Pacific Women Empowerment Principles Awards.

Ayesha Salma Kariapper, Group Head Quality Assurrance, Research and Design, PPAF

Ayesha Salma Kariapper is the Group Head, Quality Assurance, Research and Design at Pakistan Poverty Allevation Fund. PPAF is an APEX Body and the largest donor in Pakistan of MFIs with presence across 144 districts in Pakistan. PPAF has 130 partner organizations and recently won the Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks Award for the fifth consecutive year.

Dr. Sughra Choudhry, Senior Advisor Education/ECD &  Humaira Naseer, Program Manager Educaton, AKF

Dr. Sugra Choudhry is a Senior Advisor of Education and Early-Childhood Development and Humaira Naseer is Program Manager for Education at Aga Khan Foundation. Aga Khan Development Network provides a broad range of services in Pakistan. Aga Khan Education Service has established 156 schools and Aga Khan University has trained over 36,000 teachers in Pakistan. Over the past 100 years, its programmes have reached millions of students.

Saqib Siddiqui, Head of Sector Development, &  Muhammad Faheem Khalid, Manager Sector Development, PMIC

Saqib Siddiqui is the Head of Sector Development and Muhammad Faheem Khalid is Manager of Sector Development at Pakistan Microfinance Investment Company. Through PMIC’s network of more than 23 Microfinance Providers, more than 80% of borrowers are women. PMIC also focuses on development of women centric financial products and initiatives leading to financial inclusion, financial literacy, empowerment and sustainable livelihoods for women.

Kashif Mirza, President, APPSF

Kashif Mirza is the President of All Pakistan Private Schools' Federation, the single largest representative federation for Pakistan private schools. It has a membership of over 200,000 private schools – the majority charging under Rs. 2,000 per month (~US$12/month) along with more than 15,00,000 million teachers and more than 20 million students in all over Pakistan.

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Gender Differences in Education: Are Girls Neglected in Pakistani Society?

• Published: 22 March 2023

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• Humaira Kamal Pasha   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8894-5142 1 , 2  

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Differences in education between girls and boys persist in Pakistan, and the distribution of household resources and socioeconomic disparities are compounding the problem. This paper determines education attainment (primary to tertiary level) and current enrollment and explores underlying gender differences with reference to per capita income and socioeconomic characteristics of the household by using survey data of Pakistan (2005–2019) that have never been used in this context before. The potential endogeneity bias between income and education is addressed through the two-stage residual inclusion (2SRI) method that is appropriate for non-linear models used in this study. Findings indicate that income is likely to increase and facilitate a significant transition from primary- to tertiary-level education attainment. The boys have a higher likelihood to increase tertiary-level education attainment by household income. However, the probability of current enrollment is equivalent for girls and boys after controlling for endogeneity. The gender effects of Oaxaca-type decomposition indicate higher unexplained variation that describes a strong gender gap between boys and girls. The standard deviation for education inequality and gender gap ratio confirm that higher levels of discrimination and lower economic returns are associated with girls’ education, and individual and community attributes favor boys’ education. Findings suggest policies and educational strategies that focus on female education and lower-income households to build socioeconomic stability and sustainable human capital in the country.

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Introduction

According to the Education for All (EFA) report, knowledge stimulates the stock of human capital in an economy (Karoui et al., 2018 ; Kim et al., 2021 ) and increases the probability of resources being equally distributed of regardless of gender, caste, color, or region (Heb, 2020 ; de Bruin et al., 2020 ). Gender equality in education is indispensable for developing countries like Pakistan which holds rich human capital to improve economic growth (Asif et al., 2019 ). The existence of patriarchy, cultural norms, regional conflicts, son preference, and traditional notions of womanhood regarding procreation, domestic chores, and early marriage have deep roots in society (Ashraf, 2018 ). All the impediments that women face have interconnected bases in prevailing gender differences and insufficient investment in education (Kleven et al., 2019 ) at the household and state level; these also negatively impact the economic growth in Pakistan (ur Rahman et al., 2018 ).

Some educational initiatives are working effectively in Pakistan but have not completely achieved. These include alternative learning programs (ALPs) for formal schools, digital innovations programs by the collaborations between UNICEF and UNESCO targeting the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (Ministry of Federal Education, 2022), an EU partnership to implement a 5-year development program (Education Ministry of Balochistan, 2021), the Ilm- Possible Footnote 1 Project for Zero OOSC (out of school children), and equity-based critical learning (STEM, 2021). However, 22.84 million children of secondary school age have never enrolled in formal education (UNESCO Pakistan Country Strategic Document, 2018–2022). In addition, the literacy rate has declined from 62 to 58 % (World Bank Statistics, 2022) that has increased global inequality (Paris21 Strategy Agenda, 2030). This situation raises the question as to whether existing educational policies and projects are adequate for curbing the gender inequality in different provinces of Pakistan (see Fig. 1 ).

Literacy rate by province and gender in Pakistan. Source: Author construction based on data from PSLM Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan. Figure 2 displays the trend of per capita income from 2005 to 2019, one of the inevitable indicators of educational achievement. The statistics calculate a sharp drop in per capita income after 2010, which improved in 2012 but eventually declined after 2016

The country has been ranked 151 out of 153 countries by the Gender Parity Index. It has also been found that 21 % of boys and 32 % of girls in primary education have experienced gender-based discrimination (Human Rights Watch, 2018). Likewise, boys are 15 % more likely to have the opportunity to go to school than girls, as boys are viewed as financial assets by their parents. Evidently, if household income is equally distributed, girls perform outclass in grades (Yi et al., 2015 ), provide higher marginal returns to education (Whalley & Zhao, 2013 ), and achieve sustainable environment (Heb, 2020 ). The economic benefits that result from female education are as high as those that result from male education (Minasyan et al., 2019 ; Sen et al., 2019 ), particularly in relation to the achievement of tertiary education (Alfalih et al., 2021 ; Wu et al., 2020 ). In addition, although Pakistan has the largest young population in Asia, approximately 80 % of the female population has never participated in the labor market, and 130 million girls (those aged between 6 and 17 years) have never attended any form of educational institution (World Bank, 2020). Nevertheless, the latent demand for schooling remains associated with the socioeconomic status and purchasing power of the household (Asif et al., 2019 ). Likewise, parental and household treatment effects can formulate considerable gender gap that requires thorough investigation at micro level.

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between gender differences in education and household income in Pakistan. Measuring gender differences with the help of microdata and through the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches is not easy in studies of human capital development (Najeeb, 2020 ). Nor is the investigation of the circumstances that lead to more investment in a male child than a female child a straightforward matter. Findings in this area remain inconclusive, which demonstrates a lack of research conducted at the household level in Pakistan (Minasyan, 2019 ). In addition, many studies of the effect of household income on education suffer from bias-related issues which arise as a result of measurement errors and spurious relationships. Some studies use corresponding variables, such as permanent income (Kingdon, 2005 ), or ignore endogeneity while controlling for children’s cognitive skills (Chevalier et al., 2002 ). Others deal with potential endogeneity by examining sector- or community-based union membership (Chevalier, 2013 ), government tax changes (Paul, 2002 ), and rented or owned lands with the caution of the weak instrument (Okabe, 2016 ).

This study determines education achievement using ordered logit and logit models by two outcome variables: education attainment (categorical variable) and current enrollment (binary variable). It seeks to examine the causes of the prevailing gender differences in Pakistan by examining the per capita income and socioeconomic characteristics of households. This study attempts to deal with underlying potential endogeneity using a novel approach for a non-linear model and examines extant inequalities and gender effects within households. This study finds a positive and robust relationship between gender and education attainment, and the significant transformation from primary- to tertiary-level education by per capita income of the household; this contradicts the results of Munshi ( 2017 ). The findings are significantly negative with regard to the relationship between gender and current enrollment, which is opposite to the findings of the study by Maitra ( 2003 ). After dealing with potential endogeneity using the two-stage residual inclusion (2SRI afterwards) method, the results contradict those of prior studies (Chevalier et al., 2002 ; Maitra, 2003 ), and they establish a clear link between education and income along with other socioeconomic characteristics. The findings show that inequalities in education, at the micro level, exert a more powerful impact on girls than boys in relation to reducing education attainment and current enrollment. Gender decomposition reveals that individual and community attributes favor boys’ education over that of girls.

This study contributes to the literature in the following ways. Firstly, there is a risk that the factors that influence education achievement remain mis-specified due to the fact that limited information is available about children’s environments and family structures. This is why it is vital to focus on the determinants of human capital at the micro level. Most existing studies focus on the role of education and the impact of gender inequalities in relation to their impact on economic growth across countries (Assoumou-Ella, 2019 ; Evans et al., 2021 ), within country at the macro level (Rammohan et al., 2018 ), and focus on only one education level (Lloyd et al., 2005 ). This study is the first to attempt to highlight the importance of the gender gap in relation to education attainment and current enrollment and confirm whether it exists or not. It does so by examining the link between per capita income and the socioeconomic characteristics of households using a repeated cross-sectional dataset that has not achieved much academic attention from scholars in relation to the country of Pakistan. Secondly, this study develops an empirical strategy for non-linear model to address the potential endogeneity by using 2SRI approach that remain ignored mostly. It exploits exogenous variations using income shocks, windfall income, and non-labor resources to examine the potential endogeneity between income and education (Banzragch et al., 2019 ; Chevalier et al., 2002 ). Lastly, while previous studies have argued that gender inequality influences economic growth (Kopnina, 2020 ), some of these studies contain troubling contradictions (Sirine, 2015 ), some do not find that gender inequality affects economic growth to a considerable degree (Maitra, 2003 ), and some investigate its unidirectional effect (Tansel & Bodur, 2012 ). This study captures discriminations effect in education investment in boys and girls by education inequalities and gender decomposition estimated at household level. It also adopts alternative specifications of gender inequalities to examine economic returns on education.

The rest of this study is structured as follows. The “Literature Review” section explains the importance of gender equality with reference to previous studies. The “Methodology and Data” section describes the methodology and the data used in this study. The “Empirical Results and Discussion” section presents the results and analysis, and the “Conclusion and Policy Implications” section concludes the study while also discussing policy implications and the limitations of the study.

Literature Review

Education is an essential element of the Cobb–Douglas production function (Saleem et al., 2019 ) that can improve human capital, promote economic growth, and curb poverty in the long term (Arshed et al., 2019 ). Many countries have experienced improvements in enrollment rates; however, their economic growth appears difficult to achieve. This mechanism of human capital can be revisited and revised by focusing on the equal distribution of education in economic and sustainable approach (Livingstone, 2018 ). The study of Duflo et al. ( 2021 ) examines the impact of free secondary education on gains in economic welfare after the completion the target of UPE (universal primary education). They use data relating to secondary high schools from 54 districts in Ghana to examine 1500 students enrolled in a scholarship program. They find that the program increased secondary-level education attainment by 27 % and further resulted in better learning skills and lower rates of early marriage and reduced fertility rates among girls. This suggests a potential movement toward the more equal treatment of the genders within households. However, they did not find any significant influence of education attainment on future employment. Using the Barro-Lee dataset of education attainment, Evans et al. ( 2021 ) estimate the gender gap and its effects on long-term economic growth. Instead taking the gender gap ratio, it prefers to employ difference of the education attainment between men and women. Their findings indicate that low levels of education in women are the reason why the gender gap has become so pronounced in many countries. This gap is revealed to be highly correlated with the age of the women and per capita income.

The study by Kopnina ( 2020 ) discusses the sustainable educational goals that are indispensable for progressive universal education and economic growth. It reveals alternative measures that might influence the circular economy and argues that gender differences will decrease as a result of investment in female education. It endorses the use of the term “empowerment education,” and particularly to refer to females who remain unempowered with regard to their financial independence and social status. They propose the direct influence of female education on the food patterns, efficient consumption of household and natural resources, and renewable energy that can handle growing population in a sustainable approach. Likewise, the study of de Bruin et al. ( 2020 ) finds that education and income can promote sustainability and reduce gender inequality. They use age, education, and different types of work to analyze the gender-differentiated impact of these factors on economic change.

Another study, that of Rammohan et al. ( 2018 ), examines gender disparity in education using district-level data in India and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. To do so, they use data related to the gender gap between male and female education attainment, GDP per capita, and ethnicity. Their study finds that those living in wealthier districts are more inclined toward educating their daughters than those living in poor ones. Sahoo and Klasen ( 2021 ) focused on female participation in the STEM streams by using the variables: female, siblings, age, parental education, test scores, household size, and ethnicity. They reveal that girls are 20 % less likely to enroll in STEM streams than boys. The plausible explanation for lower female participation is associated with parental preferences and income disparity in the household. Maitra ( 2003 ) uses a probit model and a censored probit model simultaneously and finds that there is no gender difference in the current enrollment rates of boys and girls (6–12 years) but that there is a higher gap in relation to grade attainment for girls (13–24). The data used is from the Matlab Health and Socio-Economic Survey (MHSS) of rural Bangladesh, which surveys 149 villages. The explanatory variables include religion, household size, number of siblings, the head of the household’s education level and occupation, a log of per adult household expenditure, and household characteristics such as the number of bedrooms, access to water and a toilet, and the availability of electricity. The endogeneity issue of the income has dealt by taking the residual term of the log of the adult expenditure in the household.

The study of Davis et al. ( 2019 ) uses the World Value Survey (1981–2014) to capture individual effects on women’s status. They argue that individual decision-making can increase women’s education attainment, their choice to bear a child, and advance economic sustainability such as urbanization and the provision of basic necessities. The above effects provide economic benefits that further support gender equality and discourage the traditional role of women in the society. Robb et al. ( 2012 ) examine the gender differences in education attainment using data about university graduates and an ordered probit model. They find that female students perform better than their male counterparts but that they are less likely to obtain a first-class degree. It is shown that factors such as the type of institution, individual abilities, and the choice of subjects are not the reason for gender inequality; however, the effects of these factors increase the gender gap in relation to educational performance. The predict probabilities of their study explain that the likelihood that female students will attain a first-class degree is 5 %, compared with 8 % for male students. Other studies also advocate that reducing gender differences in education achievement can have transitional and long-term effects on women’s empowerment (Kabeer, 2021 ), legal protection (Durrani et al., 2018 ), employment (Najeeb et al., 2020 ), and sustainable growth (Heb, 2020 ).

Prior Literature in the Context of Pakistan

In the context of Pakistan, Ashraf et al. ( 2018 ) apply Dickey–Fuller generalized least squares (DF-GLS) to examine the impact of secondary school attainment on gender inequality. They employ multiple sources of data about Pakistan, namely, economic surveys, the National Assembly of Pakistan database, and the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) survey. They use the Gender Inequality Index (GII) as the dependent variable. The findings show that economic deprivation can decrease women’s participation in the labor force and their education attainment. Notably, the external or spillover effects of education attainment on gender inequality are also crucial to understanding the lower purchasing power of the household. Qureshi ( 2007 ) conducts a bivariate regression analysis using the Learning and Educational Achievements in Punjab Schools (LEAPS) dataset to investigate whether the education attainment of an older sister impacts on the education attainment of younger children in the household. Mainly, it describes a spillover effect in education that remains unnoticed to receive its maximum economic benefit. It takes into account age, the father’s education level, the household head’s education level, the number of children, the infrastructure of the household, the regional languages, and the number of the districts in the province. The findings reveal 0.2 % of years of schooling increases in youngers boys by the older educated sister that can be the potential human capital in the future labor market. However, their study fails to analyze the spillover effect that an educated older brother has on a younger sister.

The study of Asif et al. ( 2019 ) demonstrates that the strong and significant impact of investment in education without gender bias creates other avenues for sustainable growth in Pakistan. Likewise, some studies investigate education investment to explore other dimensions including welfare gains in relation to eradicating hunger (Ali et al., 2021 ), the awareness of climate change by energy consumption and recyclable goods (Ali et al., 2019 ), the transformation of society into one with equal rights and zero violence (Durrani et al., 2018 ), the female leadership in entrepreneurial decision-making (Shaheen and Ahmad, 2022 ), and the voluntary effort toward food security and patterns of daily life (Qazlbash et al., 2021 ). Mahmood et al. ( 2012 ) use time-series data (1971–2009) to investigate the relationship between human capital investment and economic growth. In their work, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and OLS models show a positive relationship between high enrollment rates in education and economic growth rates in the short and long term.

A similar strategy is proposed by Zaman ( 2010 ), who also suggests that there is a correlation between female education and economic development. Interestingly, Lloyd et al. ( 2005 ) find that parents tend to prefer that girls and boys attend separate schools; however, availability of primary schools and type of school (public or private) also play key roles. The study of ur Rahman et al. ( 2018 ) finds that a solution to the vicious cycle of poverty comes in the form of increasing the education level of a household. By using logistic regression, they find a negative relationship between education and poverty in Pakistan. They emphasize the role of education plays in providing potential human capital for the labor market and even generating new and improved employment opportunities that result in better living standards and economic well-being. However, a key issue with regard to the aforementioned studies is that they do not propose well-specified econometric strategies with that can be implemented to tackle gender differences in education, while others fail to address the potential endogeneity in non-linear models and some remain unable to decompose gender effects within the household.

Methodology and Data

Data and variables.

This study uses repeated cross-sectional data from the PSLM survey conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) of the Government of Pakistan for the seven fully available rounds from 2005 to 2019 (2005–2006, 2007–2008, 2010–2011, 2011–2012, 2013–2014, 2015–2016, and 2018–2019). The survey was designed to provide social and economic indicators at the provincial and district level; starting in 2004, the survey aims to accurately describe the country. The sample size of the PSLM surveys is approximately 80,000 households. The total number of observations after pooling the data is 1,011,849.

This study uses two models for alternative measurements of the education achievement of boys and girls; the first model is education attainment (the highest completed schooling; aged 9–24 years), and the second model is current enrollment (aged 5–24 years). The boys and girls are restricted in first model to the 9–15, 16–19, and 20–24 age groups for primary-, secondary-, and tertiary-level education attainment, respectively. The following criteria are considered: additional year for class repetition by the students, late admission into schools, the completion standards of the Pakistan education system, and traditional age requirements for entering in school adopted in past studies (Maitra et al., 2003 ). In addition, boys and girls are restricted to not having the status of head or working person. In the first model, education attainment is a categorical outcome variable examines by the ordered logit model that can be defined as:

In the second model, current enrollment is a dichotomous outcome variable examines by logit model that can be described as:

The explanatory variables include dummy variables of the gender and age of boys and girls depending on models. Age is represented by a linear and quadratic term to control for birth cohort effects and capture non-linearity effects on education achievement. As age is directly proportional in contributing to cognitive skills and human capital, age square indicates marginal returns from age that decrease over time.

Other explanatory variables include the marital status of the household members (Kingdon, 2005 ). This study uses a series of dummy variables for the education level of individuals including the head of the household, parents, and other members of the household (i.e., those older than 24). This is because a joint-family structure is the majority form of family structure in Pakistan, and the head of the household is usually not the father but rather any elderly family member. Likewise, head’s personal treatment and decision-making influence on the education achievement. In addition, using parental education instead of maternal education is also feasible for gender difference analysis to avoid the issue of multicollinearity. Several tests are run to check for multicollinearity, including the variance inflation factor (VIF) and correlation matrix. The VIF for each predictor variable should be less than 10. It is 7.02 for the education attainment model and 4.12 for current enrollment model. Footnote 2 The siblings’ variable is used to control the reciprocal relationship between quantity and quality of education (Hazarika, 2001 ; Maitra, 2003 ). Occupational heterogeneity is controlled by different household members’ professions (McNabb, 2002 ) ranging from high-salaried (officer) to low-salaried (laborer) professions.

The variable of interest in this study is the per capita income of the household. It represents the household’s possible investment in education, which can maximize economic returns and minimize gender inequality. The availability of electricity, gas, and broadband internet access is a proxy for household infrastructure and technology advancement. The latter is of interest as it may impact on digital education, sustainable development, and the urgency of the micro- and macro-crisis such as health. The high demand to shift education from formal to virtual platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic has opened up new dimensions with regard to the acquisition of skills and knowledge. The other control variables consist of the dependency ratio, household size, ownership of house and any establishment other than agricultural land (ur Rahman et al., 2018 ), and ownership of the cultivating land for the personal use of the household (Sawada, 2009 ). Finally, community characteristics are controlled by including dummy variables for locations and number of the provinces of the country (Hazarika, 2001 ).

Empirical Strategy

The concept of the ordered logit model for education attainment is to incorporate intermediate continuous variable says y in the latent regression accompanied by the observed ( x i ) explanatory variables and the unobserved error term ( ε i ). The range of y is divided in adjacent intervals that comprise four categories—namely, 0 = no education, 1 = primary education, 2 = secondary education, and 3 = tertiary education—related to latent variable ( Y ∗ ). The structural model for latent education is:

where β is the vector of the parameters to be estimated; ε is the disturbance term, which is assumed to be independent across observations; and y ∗ can take value with observations.

For the discrete choices, the following are observing as:

Where Y is the category of education attainment, and τ denotes the threshold parameters, explaining the transition from one category of education attainment to another category. Consequently, τ must satisfy the rule according to τ 0  <  τ 1  <  τ 2  <  τ 3 , as the ε i is logistically distributed. The resulting probabilities can be observed as:

Hence, the probability of outcome can imply as:

whereas the log likelihood function for ordered logistic regression is:

The function formulates the ordered logit model with multiple equations, whereas each equation presents the logit model (Williams, 2005 ). The econometric model is therefore:

Endogeneity Bias

The main econometric challenge is to identify the endogeneity problems. There is the possibility that variable per capita income is likely to be related to unobservable factors that affect education achievement in many ways not included in the regression. There may be errors in measuring per capita income that bias the results. In addition, a causal relationship may exist between income and education achievement. This relationship might also be influenced by parental economic circumstances, social status, and any spurious third factor such as personal preferences. Reverse causality occurs when the poor educational performance of the boy or girl might lower household income and vice versa. Therefore, the model may suffer from omitted variable bias and (reverse) causality issues. The literature also explores per capita income as an endogenous variable that has instrumented by parental and household characteristics including employment, education, and farming activities (Bratti, 2007 ; Hoogerheide, 2012 ). Other studies examine its causal relationship with income shock (Coelli, 2005 ), the difference in households’ incomes, rainfall, and climate change in relation to productivity concerns (Fichera et al., 2015 ).

In the first model of education attainment, income shock such as head unemployment and non-labor resources of grandparents in the household are used as instruments for per capita income (Behrman et al., 1997 ). If the head of the household is unemployed, this is unlikely to influence the total years of schooling undertaken by boys and girls when there is a joint family structure where the parents are responsible for meeting educational expenditures. Similarly, the permanent or non-labor income of the grandparents is an exogenous and strong instrument that does not directly affect the total years of schooling undertaken by boys and girls (Bratti, 2007 ). However, these instruments may affect the current enrollment of boys and girls, thus necessitating the exploration of other exogenous variables. Therefore, the potential endogeneity in the current enrollment model is captured by another set of exogenous variables; first, the difference in per capita income between households (included in the PSLM survey) and country, and second, windfall income. The difference in per capita income is a proxy for income shock that does not relate to agricultural goods but rather a retrospective analysis of households having or not having wages. This difference may represent the transitional effect of the financial condition of the household (Björkman-Nyqvist, 2013 ; Sawada, 2009 ) in developing countries such as Pakistan. Similarly, windfall income comprises mainly of the unearned income of the household or non-labor income that includes lottery wins, inheritances, gifts, unexpected charity payments, and irregular sources of income (Kingdon, 2005 ; Powdthavee et al., 2013 ), which are exogenous.

Another source of endogeneity might arise due to the relationship between education spending and current enrollment in the logit model regression. The literature provides instruments for education spending such as community-, labor-, or industry-union membership of the household’s head that in unavailable in PSLM dataset while some studies refer to the head’s occupations (Maitra, 2003 ). The estimation results after instrumenting education spending with the head of household’s occupation show that the null hypothesis of homogeneity is not rejected, as it has a p -value of 0.93. However, this study tries to control educational spending through the addition of dummy occupational variables, home ownership, and land cultivation (Maitra, 2003 ; Shea, 2000 ). Other individual and socioeconomic characteristics are considered as exogenous. The OLS regression (for instrument validation) and alternative approaches to capture potential endogeneity—such as the control function approach, two-stage least squares (2SLS) (ignoring the nature of the outcome variable), and the IV probit model (splitting the outcome variable into a binary variable where necessary)—are also examined.

To apply the 2SRI method, the first step is to find exogenous variables; however, this method is different from the standard IV estimation method. The strategy behind choosing variables is that variables predict a possible definition of homogeneity. The argument behind this method (Terza, 2018 ) is based on the inappropriateness of the traditional linear instrumental variable estimator for the correction of the endogeneity problem. The core advantage of this method is that the estimated coefficients associated with the residuals from the first-stage regression significantly express the presence of endogeneity in the model (Huasman, 1978 ). In this method, the first stage consists of the OLS regression and predicts the endogenous variable by using the instruments and the rest of the explanatory variables. The second stage is estimated using the ordered logit model with the inclusion of the first-stage residuals. In the final stage, the whole program is set to be bootstrapped. The latent model will be established by splitting the explanatory variables into exogenous and endogenous variables, say X ex and X en , and the equation becomes:

The first-stage equation of the 2SRI method is estimated for income using all the exogenous variables and instruments in the OLS regression. It takes the form as:

where E ( X en ,  Z ) ≠ 0 and E ( ε i ,  Z ) = 0; β and γ are coefficient parameters; and v i and ε i are error terms, respectively. The second stage of the 2SRI method estimates outcome variable using the residuals obtained from the first-stage equation taken as control variables along with other explanatory variables. The model is described as:

This method is a simple test of endogeneity: if the residuals of the first stage are statistically significant, then the results will be biased in the first model, refer to control the endogeneity issue (Terza, 2018 ; Akarçay-Gürbüz & Polat, 2017 ).

Education and Inequality Parameters

The Gini coefficient for education, average years of schooling, and standard deviation are the inequality parameters that have been considered by observing the education system and structure of the country, the efficiency of learning performance, and variations in gender-specific education investment (Digdowiseiso, 2010 ; Thomas et al., 2001 ). Footnote 3 The consideration of these inequalities might help to reveal the socioeconomic and intrahousehold factors behind the different treatment for girls’ education. Therefore, the extended model can be described as:

The gender decomposition examines while using the basic models of each specification by the mean, the coefficient (Kingdom, 2005 ), and the interactions of the boy dummy variable (Maitra, 2003 ). Furthermore, the results are decomposed for gender effects by variant type Oaxaca decomposition (Dong et al., 2009 ; Golsteyn et al., 2014 ; Pal, 2004 ). This approach is generally used to examine the gender effects related to economic returns and the wage gap (Oaxaca, 1973 ). In this study, however, the standard approach has been modified to examine the gender effects related to education achievement. The probability of education attainment determines, say AT, separately for girls and boys with other characteristics, say X g and X b , respectively. Assuming \(\Pr \left( AT,{X}_i,{\theta}_i^{\ast}\right)\) is the expected probability of AT and \({\theta}_i^{\ast }\) is the vector if the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters of the ordered logit model for i  =  g , b for girls and boys, respectively, the expected AT for any individual would be:

Using expected education attainment for the boys’ and girls’ samples, respectively, one can decompose the boy-girl differential in alternative ways as follows:

In brief, the explained variation is attributable to the different characteristics of boy-girl, while the unexplained variation is attributable to the different treatment of boys and girls in the household. This is achieved by allowing the parameters to vary while the characteristics are held constant. A similar approach was adopted for current enrollment as well.

The alternative specifications explore the impact of gender inequalities in education achievement on the household income using OLS regression. This study uses three different measurements of gender difference. Considering education attainment, the first indicator—the gender gap Footnote 4 —is calculated as the difference in illiteracy rates between girls and boys (Cooray, 2011 ). The second indicator, gender difference, Footnote 5 measures the difference in education attainment between girls and boys (Baliamoune–Lutz & McGillivray, 2015 ), while the final indicator—the gender gap ratio Footnote 6 —is constructed based on the difference between boys’ and girls’ education attainment (Digdowiseiso, 2010 ). Similar inequalities in current enrollment for boys and girls (5–24) are also estimated. The alternative specification estimates in the linear regression model are defined as:

Furthermore, the robustness tests for education achievement are examined using several other specifications including ordered probit and probit models, another explanatory variable—per capita expenditure of the household, and provincial heterogeneity.

Descriptive Statistics

The detailed descriptive statistics of the selected variables are exhibited in Table 1 . On average, 10 % of boys and girls attain a primary level of education, and 2.1 % attain a tertiary level of education. On average, the variable gender signifies 49 % girls in first model of education attainment and 48.8 % in second model of current enrollment. On average, 38.9 % of boys and girls are currently enrolled in education, and per capita income (in the log) is 8.8 (see Fig. 2 ). Overall, the age of the household has a nonlinear effect; as with the increase of age of the household’ members, there is decrease in the education level (see Fig. 3 ). Meanwhile, this study uses the age of the boys and girls, according to the models’ criteria. The mean age in the first model is 15.95 years whereas it is 13.59 in the second model. This study observes a higher ratio of low-salaried occupations (for example, machine operators); thus, the dependency ratio is also higher at 41.6 %. A total of 44.5 % of the population lives in urban areas, 80.6 % receive electricity, and 37.7 % have access to gas supplies. Among other provinces, the highest population locates in the province of Punjab.

Household’s income in Pakistan. Source: Author construction based on data from PSLM Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan. Figure 2 displays the trend of per capita income from 2005 to 2019, one of the inevitable indicators of educational achievement. The statistics calculate a sharp drop in per capita income after 2010, which improved in 2012 but eventually declined after 2016

Education attainment by age (2005–2019). Source: Author construction based on data from PSLM Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan. Figure 3 expresses the predictive margins between the age of the persons living in the household and their education levels. The probability of primary education attainment decreases after 25 years of age, whereas it is the opposite for the tertiary level. Meanwhile, with the increase in age, it is more likely to achieve secondary education

Empirical Results and Discussion

Determining education attainment and current enrollment levels.

Table 2 describes the average marginal effects of the ordered logit model for primary-, secondary-, tertiary-level, and no education attainment with the help of household income per capita and various socioeconomic characteristics. In the full sample models, variable gender—girl, increases primary-, secondary-, and tertiary-level education attainment by 0.4, 0.5, and 0.2 percentage points, respectively, at the 1 % significance level; this contradicts the findings of Munshi ( 2017 ). Per capita income, on average, increases the likelihood of primary-, secondary-, and tertiary-level education attainment by 0.1, 0.2, and 0.1 percentage points, respectively. The effect of age is more likely to increase secondary- and tertiary- education attainment. As findings reveal that the transitional effect of education attainment is progressive from primary level to secondary level, however, it does not appear with same proportion from secondary level to tertiary level. The impact of the age and squared-age has non-linear effect that can be justified in two manners. Firstly, with the increase in age, the proportion of transition of the education attainment levels decreases. Secondly, there is a negative relationship between the term squared age and education attainment.

Meanwhile, the presence of an educated head of household significantly improves primary-, secondary-, and tertiary-level education attainment—by 5.0, 10.4, and 4.1 percentage points, respectively. Other household members are likely to increase secondary- and tertiary-level education attainment by 20.9 and 11.5 percentage points, respectively. The results show higher marginal effects for education attainment by technicians (low-salaried) compare to managers (high-salaried), indicating that lower occupations have strong inspiration to maximize the human resources capital of the household. In addition, the availability of electricity, internet access, and access to a gas supply are highly likely to enhance education attainment. On average, living in urban area has the likelihood to impact primary-, secondary-, and tertiary education attainment by 0.2, 0.3, and 0.1 percentage points, respectively.

From models 5 to 8, for girls, it can be seen that per capita income significantly increases each level of education attainment. However, it increases secondary-level education attainment more than other levels, by 0.2 percentage points. Age has a significant and nonlinear effect. The variable married is likely to decrease the probability of education attainment by 1.6 and 5.0 percentage points at the tertiary and secondary levels of education, respectively. Interesting, parental education has a positive influence, but it is only significant at the secondary education attainment with 23.3 percentage points. In addition, the presence of an educated head of household and other members also provides a positive and significant effect. On analyzing different occupations, the results indicate a 19.6, 23.7, 8.9, and 1.5 percentage point increase in tertiary education attainment by clerks, officers, managers, and machine operators. The household size shows an inverse relationship with girls’ education attainment, particularly at the secondary level. The household infrastructure provides positive effect on girls’ education attainment. It may exhibit that sustainable consumption of household resources including electricity and gas can exert female education that can promote gender equity and economic returns.

From models 9 to 12, for education attainment, it can be seen that the impact of the per capita income of the household is comparatively equal for boys and girls. The household income is likely to increase secondary—and tertiary—education attainment in boys by 0.2 and 0.1 percentage points, respectively. Parental education is highly unlikely to increase the probability of education attainment. The presence of an educated head of household increases education attainment by 4.9, 9.5, and 3.2 percentage points at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels, respectively. Similarly, the presence of household members with numeracy skills and secondary education is likely to increase secondary-level education attainment by 10.9 and 22.2 percentage points, respectively. This study observes a strong impact of occupational heterogeneity on education attainment; officers and clerks significantly improve the primary- and secondary-level education attainment in boys. The clerks are highly likely to increase tertiary-level education attainment, by 15.4 percentage points. Compared to Punjab, provinces such as KPK and Balochistan are less likely to increase primary, secondary, and tertiary education attainment.

Table 3 describes the average marginal effects from the current enrollment models with the help of logit model regression.

In the full model, the estimate of the variable girl is highly significant and negative—an opposite finding to that of past studies (Maitra, 2003 )—and likely to decrease the probability of current enrollment in education by 0.8 percentage points. A unit increase in income per capita is more likely to improve the current enrollment rates for girls than it is for boys; an increase of 0.4 percentage points is observed for girls. Age has a nonlinear effect with its squared term; thus, current enrollment rates decrease with age. Additionally, variable married decreases the probability of current enrollment in education in girls by 15.6 percentage points. Current enrollment increases for boys if there are educated household members; however, this is not the case for certain professions such as clerks and machine operators.

Other indicators associated with physical capital such as ownership of establishment or land are negatively related to current enrollment rates. This indicates that education is not the primary objective among landowners, as they do not worry about employment. The educational transition from primary to higher grades is less valuable than monetary assets, and most people are reluctant to leave their ancestral profession if it is associated with land cultivation. Household infrastructure is likely to benefit girls more than boys, however when we examine the influence of living in an urban location, which is highly likely to increase enrollment rates in education for boys. The dependency ratio provides higher marginal effects for current enrollment in boys, which further supports the objective of this study. The majority of the households in Pakistan support male earners who are likely to bear all the expenditures. Therefore, the parents prefer to invest in boys’ education for potential job opportunities and financial support in the long run. Results from siblings shows a positive relation to current enrollment and reveal higher quantity-to-quality trade-offs particularly among girls. The results show a higher marginal effect in KPK province; this might be due to the new framework of free and accessible education that has been in place since 2013 (KPK Government Statistics, 2021).

Dealing with Endogeneity Bias

Table 4 shows the results of the average marginal effects using the ordered logit model regression/2SRI approach after dealing with endogeneity. In the full sample, the per capita income of the household is likely to increase education attainment at each level by a higher ratio compared to the aforementioned results. There is a drastic increase in primary-level education attainment: 11.2 percentage points. Likewise, secondary- and tertiary-level education attainment increase by 15.9 and 4.9 percentage points, respectively. Even the variable gender is almost two times higher than the previous results for secondary-level education attainment. Other indicators that illustrate higher marginal effects are educated head of household, household size, and infrastructure. The results find a positive relationship between education and urbanization by introducing income shock of head unemployment and non-labor resources. It retrieves two strong arguments; first, the income shock is likely to increase potential human mobilization for confronting household economic burden. The second, non-labor resources exert positive impact on population by increasing non-market activities, as time allocation shifts from work to leisure.

From models 5 to 8, for girls, the results are significant but with higher marginal effects than the full sample. A sharp increase in secondary-level education attainment is caused by household income: an increase of 10.8 percentage points. Results find negative relationship between married persons and education attainment of the girls, especially at primary level. It might be possible that married persons are quite young in age, particularly women, without having any education awareness and sufficient resources. These results may indicate the need of awareness programs in the household to encourage women education and discourage early-age marriages. On the other hand, a significant decrease in household size supports an increase in primary-level education attainment.

There is a higher impact of per capita income on boys’ education attainment than girls, indicating household’s preferences. The per capita income of the household is likely to increase primary-, secondary- and tertiary-level education attainment by 13.0, 17.9, and 4.9 percentage points, respectively. The presence of an educated head of household has a strong and positive effect on boys’ education attainment; however, it is the opposite for girls’ primary-level education attainment. The results show that intermediate internet access is more effective for girls than boys. Meanwhile, household size also impacts quite positively on boys’ education attainment as they are potential lone bread earners for their families. Living in an urban location results the potential career for boys, thus revealing a positive correlation with education attainment.

The average marginal effects are shown in Table 5 for current enrollment after dealing with potential endogeneity. Per capita income is four times more likely to increase the likelihood of current enrollment in the full sample than the results reported in the “Determining Education Attainment and Current Enrollment Levels” section. Its impact is 4.4 percentage points for boys and girls. The variable girl reduces the probability of current enrollment by 0.3 percentage points. The results find a significant effect of parental education on boys, thus revealing a gender bias in investment in education. Similar results are reported for the impact of educated members of the household and the occupations of those living in the household. The other results describe a wider gap in current enrollment in Sindh and Balochistan, where girls are highly unlikely to enroll in any kind of educational institution.

Estimations of Education Attainment and Current Enrollment by Inequalities

Table 6 illustrates the average marginal effects by incorporating different educational inequalities such as the Gini coefficient, years of schooling (on average), and standard deviation for education attainment by ordered logit model, as shown in panels A, B, and C. For this moment, only results with educational inequalities have been provided. Full results can be provided on demand. In girls’ sample, by examining panel A, we can see that the Gini coefficient is highly significant and indicates a sharp decrease in tertiary- and secondary-level education attainment, by 0.6 and 1.6 percentage points, respectively. Furthermore, in panel B, the average years of schooling have positive relationship with secondary- and tertiary-level education attainment. In panel C, the estimates explain that the standard deviation inequality decreases secondary- and tertiary-level education attainment by 0.1 percentage points, respectively. For boys’ sample, in panel A, the results show that the Gini coefficient decreases the secondary- and tertiary-level education attainment of boys; however, the marginal effects are slightly higher compared to those for girls. In panel B of average years of education, there is an equal improvement in secondary- and tertiary-level education attainment of boys; however, no significant effect is found in panel C.

The relationship between current enrollment and educational inequalities is shown in Table 7 . In panel A, the results indicate that educational inequalities impact both boys and girls. However, examining the marginal effects by gender, the Gini coefficient is found to be higher for boys. In panel B, the average years of schooling of currently enrolled boys and girls are higher for girls by 0.6 percentage points. This indicates that girls are almost 0.4 times more likely to enroll in school. There is an insignificant impact of standard deviation on boys’ current enrollment; however, it is the opposite for girls. A unit increase in standard deviation decreases the probability of girls’ current enrollment by 0.2 percentage points.

Explaining the Gender Gap and its Decomposition

Table 8 provides mean statistics and differences in the coefficients in relation to education attainment.

In panel A, most of the household characteristics favor girls; these include personal attributes such as age and infrastructure while per capita income, educated members, head, and urbanization provide higher mean probabilities for boys ’education attainment. The difference between boys and girls is shown in the last column by interacting the boy dummy variable with each explanatory variable as an additional regressor in the basic model of the full sample using ordered logit model regression. The estimates find favorable values for girls’ education attainment in relation to the education level of her parents and the head of the household and household characteristics. Panel B provides mean statistics and coefficient differences for current enrollment. The personal attributes such as age, married, and infrastructure have the higher mean probabilities for girls’ education attainment. The last column displays the differences between boys and girls and shows that educated head, urbanization, and provinces favor boys.

Table 9 presents the gender differences in education attainment and current enrollment by predicted probabilities using variant type Oaxaca decomposition by incorporating four scenarios. Such as (i) girls using estimated parameters obtained from girls’ equation, (ii) girls using estimated parameters obtained from boys’ equation, (iii) boys using estimated parameters obtained from boys’ equation, and (iv) boys using estimated parameters obtained from girls’ equation (Pal, 2004 ). Comparatively, boys are having approximately two times lower corresponding probabilities using girls’ parameters. Conversely, the probability of girls’ education attainment increases almost two times higher using boys’ parameters. A similar proportion of increase observes in girls’ current enrollment using boys’ parameters. While two times lower probabilities observe for boys’ current enrollment using girls’ parameters. The estimates of difference are presented with the boys’ reference. In the end, explained and unexplained variations of gender difference are estimated. While explained variation in education attainment and current enrollment are −142.8 and 41.4 %, respectively (Dong et al., 2009 ). The unexplained variation, generally considers as discrimination, has higher values in both models and highlight the different treatment between boys and girls in the household. However, this study presents such variation as gender differences that may be due to unobservable factors and imperfectly observable attributes.

Alternative Specification and Robustness Tests

In Tables 10 and 11 , the estimates are presented for education attainment and current enrollment using other models such as ordered probit and probit models (McNabb et al., 2002 ), and other variables such as per capita expenditure and permanent income (non-labor assets) are included.

In both models, the results are highly significant and provide additional evidence to support the previous estimations. The variable girl is more likely to increase education attainment at the secondary level. The unit increase in income per capita is marginally higher in the probit model regression. The findings show that per capita expenditure is likely to positively impact on girls’ education, particularly in relation to secondary-level education attainment. Considering the robust test by incorporating the permanent income of the household, the variable gender is positively significant with education attainment. A unit increase in permanent income raises primary- and secondary-level education attainment more in boys. In addition, there is sharp increase in boys’ current enrollment with a unit increase in permanent income. Other robustness tests, including provincial heterogeneity, the control function approach, IV probit, 2SLS, and the determination of education attainment and current enrollment for boys and girls from a different age group (13–24), are available on request.

Table 12 presents results for alternative specification where per capita income is the dependent variable and gender inequalities (education attainment and current enrollment) as interested variables. This specification can also be interpreted as the future earning potential of girls and boys. Considering education attainment, in panel A, the gender gap due to illiteracy decreases income by approximately 11.3 % more in girls compared to boys. In panel B and C, gender difference is likely to decrease income by 3.2 and 1.2 % in girls. Moving toward current enrollment, in panels A, B, and C, each gender inequality reduces the household income comparatively higher among girls than boys by 7.1, 3.0, and 1.7 %.

Conclusion and Policy Implications

Despite having the potential for human resource capital, Pakistan struggles with extreme poverty, socioeconomic disparity, and gender inequality at the grass-root level (Ali et., 2021 ; Asif et al., 2019 ). To address these undeniable issues, it becomes crucial to comprehend the significance of the equal distribution of household resources in education regardless of gender that builds a sustainable economic structure toward global equality (Kopnina, 2020 ). This study aims to examine education achievement and underlying gender differences using two models: education attainment and current enrollment. The findings highlight the importance of the relationship between education and income along with other household characteristics. This study deals with potential endogeneity by using the 2SRI approach and examines gender and educational inequalities at the micro level.

The findings demonstrate that household income has a significant and positive impact on education attainment and the current enrollment of boys and girls. The education attainment transition from primary to tertiary-level is successful that supports the past studies (Duflo et al., 2021 ; Wu et al., 2020 ). However, the transition from primary to secondary education is higher than that from secondary to tertiary education attainment. The community and individuals’ attributes support education investment in boys indicating household and socioeconomic preferences. Girls can improve their education with the availability of personal and household attributes (Yi et al., 2015 ). Other findings from education attainment and current enrollment models predict a demographic framework that encourages a sustainable environment with a decline in household size and dependency ratio (Heb, 2020 ; Asif, 2019 ; Fichera et al., 2015 ). These findings contradict those of past studies (Munshi, 2017 ) and establish a link between temporary residents (daughters) and different occupations of the households, whereby lower-salaried households and deprived areas can significantly improve female education attainment and current enrollment.

The findings show that there is a negative relationship between the Gini coefficient and education attainment and that this gap is wider at secondary and tertiary education levels, thus supporting the results of the basic model. The standard deviation of educational inequalities is higher for girls that further confirms the existence of gender differences in education. Likewise, the findings from the alternative specifications provide decrease in potential economic returns on education by gender inequalities. The findings support those of Pfeffer et al. ( 2018 ) with regard to discouraging wealth accumulation in terms of physical capital and increasing investment in female education (Kopnina, 2020 ). It can effectively transform the developing society of Pakistan by framing public policies for women’s empowerment (United Nations Education, 2030), gender equality (Arshed et al., 2019 ), poverty alleviation (ur Rahman et al., 2018 ), and sustainable development (Sen, 2019 ). Therefore, this study identifies some valuable recommendations for policymakers wishing to promote gender equality:

Implement cooperative projects created by federal and local governments that supply free, digital, and up-to-date education in schools, colleges, and universities to improve transition levels, with a particular focus on poor infrastructure, highly deprived regions, and mobility restricted areas.

Adopt targeted policies to minimize education and gender gaps between those enrolled and not enrolled in education by supporting low-income households through the allocation of funds, scholarships, and incentives.

Reform educational strategies to provide cost effective education in collaboration with parents, teachers, and schools with the aim of creating advanced and scientific curricula aligned with sustainable development goals.

Craft awareness campaigns to eradicate gender-specific investment in education, encourage talented females to enter tertiary-level education in particular, and address socioeconomic challenges by establishing reliable and organized educational committees in each province.

Finally, some potential limitations should be noted, as these might open up new horizons for future research. Quantitative research should be conducted to examine other household characteristics and upcoming survey rounds than those discussed in this study.

Translated as Knowledge Possible project that having contribution of US $ 1 billion for sustainable programs.

These tests are available on request.

The Gini coefficient for education is defined as the ratio to the mean (average years of schooling) of half of the average overall pairs of absolute deviations between all pairs of people (Deaton, 1997). It is further redeveloped by Thomas ( 2001 ):

where E L is the Gini coefficient based on education attainment, 𝜇 is average years of schooling, Pi and P j are the proportion of the population, y i and y j are years of schooling at different educational levels, and n is the number of levels in the attainment data. Average years of schooling and standard deviation can be calculated as follows: \(\textrm{AYS}=\sum_{\textrm{i}=1}^{\textrm{n}}{\textrm{P}}_{\textrm{i}}{\left({\textrm{y}}_{\textrm{i}}-\upmu \right)}^2\) and \(\textrm{SD}=\sqrt{\sum_{\textrm{i}=1}^{\textrm{n}}{\textrm{P}}_{\textrm{i}}{\left({\textrm{y}}_{\textrm{i}}-\upmu \right)}^2}\) .

Gender gap (illiteracy rates [9–24 years of age]) = number of girls’ illiterate – number of boys’ illiterate

Gender difference (education attainment [9–24 years of age]) = total years of schooling of girls – total years of schooling of boys.

Gender gap ratio (education attainment [9–24 years of age]) = total years of schooling of girls/total years of schooling of boys.

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Acknowledgements

This study benefited from the discussion with the participants of the American Economic Association Annual Meeting, 2022, USA; 49th Australian Conference of Economists CEA 2021, Australia; International Population Association Conference, 1PC 2021; 23 INFER Annual conference, 2021 Porugal; and 23rd Applied Economics Meeting, ALdE, 2021, Spain. I would like to thank Prof. Theophile T. Azomahou (CNRS- CERDI), Prof. Colin Green (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Dr. Ababacar Sedikh, and Dr. Nestor Sawadogo (CNRS-CERDI) for their thoughtful comments. I also would like to thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.

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Data is available on the website of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS): https://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/microdata .

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Pasha, H.K. Gender Differences in Education: Are Girls Neglected in Pakistani Society?. J Knowl Econ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-023-01222-y

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The rising voices of women in Pakistan

From registering women voters to negotiating rights, women are redefining roles despite resistance from the state, religious institutions, and other women.

SHAHDARA, Pakistan – Bushra Khaliq stood in the middle of a village home, chin up and shoulders back, holding the attention of fifty women around her. Old and young, they wore Pakistani tunics and scarves; some cradled and fed babies, others shushed children who tugged at their sleeves. Sun from the open roof warmed Khaliq’s face as she looked around, holding eye contact with one woman, then another. “Who is going to decide your vote?” she asked. The women clapped and shouted in unison: “Myself!”

Both Sunni and Shia students study at a girls’ school in Minawar, a village near Gilgit in the province of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Bibi Raj, 22, principal of Outliers Girls School in Minawar, graduated with her master's degree in Education in 2018. She teaches biology and chemistry and hopes her students will attend college, even though some of them are already engaged to be married.

Nadia Khan, a 23-year-old Ismaili teacher, sits among her students. Ismailis are known in Pakistan for supporting female education, but they have limited influence outside of the Hunza valley in Gilgit-Baltistan. The only girls’ school in Minawar village, with 24 students between the ages of 14 and 17, still struggles to keep girls in school instead of leaving for marriage at age 15. “It’s a challenge for me,” says Principal Bibi Raj. “All girls should go to school.”

Khaliq, a 50-year-old human rights defender and community organizer, was holding a political participation workshop session, the first of several that day in the rural outskirts of Lahore. The women attendants were local wives and daughters of agricultural laborers. Many were illiterate, though several worked low-income jobs to send their daughters to school. It was the week before Pakistan’s general election, and Khaliq, who runs an organization called Women in Struggle for Empowerment (WISE) , encouraged the women to vote.

Many rural women are not registered for their National Identity Cards , a requirement not only to vote but also to open a bank account and get a driver’s license. In Pakistan, many women in rural and tribal areas have not been able to do these things with or without the card. In accordance with patriarchal customs and family pressures, they live in the privacy of their homes without legal identities.

Yet Pakistan’s July 2018 elections saw an increase of 3.8 million newly registered women voters . The dramatic increase follows a 2017 law requiring at least a 10 percent female voter turnout to legitimize each district’s count. Pakistan has allowed women to vote since 1956, yet it ranks among the last in the world in female election participation.

Teenage girls from Gulmit load up in a van after an all-female soccer tournament meant to promote gender equality in the Hunza valley of northern Pakistan.

All-girl teams from surrounding villages walk onto the field during the soccer tournament.

The Hunza valley in the northern Pakistan borders China’s Xinjiang region and the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan. The Ismaili Muslims who live there embrace education rates for girls and religious tolerance.

The remote tribal area that borders Afghanistan, formally called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northwestern Pakistan, has traditionally been least tolerant of women in public spaces, some women activists say. Yet registration in 2018 increased by 66 percent from 2013. This rise in women’s votes is a victory for women like Khaliq, who are fighting for women’s inclusion and equality in Pakistan, especially among marginalized communities in rural and tribal areas.

Encouraging more women to vote is only the beginning. Women themselves disagree over what their role should be in Pakistani society. The patriarchal, conservative mainstream dismisses feminism as a Western idea threatening traditional social structures. Those who advocate for equality between women and men – the heart of feminism – are fighting an uphill battle. They face pushback from the state, religious institutions, and, perhaps most jarringly, other women.

There are different kinds of activists among women in Pakistan. Some are secular, progressive women like Rukhshanda Naz, who was fifteen years old when she first went on a hunger strike. She was the youngest daughter of her father’s twelve children, and wanted to go to an all-girls’ boarding school against his wishes. It took one day of activism to convince her father, but her family members objected again when she wanted to go to law school. “My brother said he would kill himself,” she said. Studying law meant she’d sit among men outside of her family, which would be dishonorable to him. Her brother went to Saudi Arabia for work. Naz got her law degree, became a human rights lawyer, opened a women’s shelter in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and worked as resident director of the Aurat Foundation, one of Pakistan’s leading organizations for women’s rights. She is also the UN Women head for the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA.

An Ismaili bride participates in one of many marriage rituals in the Hunza valley. This bride is marrying for love rather than by family arrangement.

The women in Naz’s shelter are survivors of extreme violence whose status as single women makes them highly vulnerable outside of the shelter. When we met, she brought three Afghan sisters whose brother had killed their mother after their father died so he could get her share of the land inheritance after their father died. Naz also had with her a 22-year-old woman from Kabul whose father disappeared into Taliban hands for having worked with the United Nations. The woman had been beaten, kidnapped, and sexually assaulted for refusing marriage to a Taliban member. Women hidden in Naz’s shelter are relatively safe, but outside its walls Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has high incidences of “honor”-based violence. Last June, a jirga (typically all-male tribal council) ordered the “honor” killing of a 13-year-old girl for “running away with men.” At least 180 cases of domestic violence were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2017, according to Human Rights Watch , including 94 women murdered by immediate family.

Others such as Farhat Hashmi represent women from a different perspective. A scholar with a doctoral degree in Islamic studies, Hashmi founded the Al-Huda movement. The group, started in the 1990s, has gained huge traction among upper-middle class Pakistani women as a women’s religious education system that emphasizes conservative Quranic teachings. The Al-Huda schools drew attention after Tashfeen Malik, a former student who became radicalized soon after, carried out a terror attack in San Bernardino, California, in 2015. While there is no proven connection between the Al-Huda movement and any terrorist organization, the group is one of several “piety movements” that has grown in popularity among Pakistani women.

Women of Pakistan’s Wakhi minority make and sell traditional hand-woven carpets in Gulmit village in the Hunza valley.

Zina Parvwen, 52, sits before a display of the Wakhi traditional carpets that she and eleven other women make and sell in Gulmit.

Bibi Farman, a 32-year-old female carpenter, is one of 40 women who work at a carpentry workshop in Karimabad, a village in the Hunza valley. “I am gaining skills,” Farman says. “I am earning money. I support my family and it built up my confidence. Many girls share their problems here. We are a community.”

Women show their hand-embroidered textiles to Tasleem Akhtar, 55, who runs a vocational center in a village near Islamabad. A women’s empowerment organization called Behbud has trained about 300 women who are working here. The women use their earnings to send their children to school.

The role of women in Al-Huda’s teachings is fundamentally different from the position women like Naz and Khaliq are fighting for: Women are taught to obey and submit to their husbands as much as possible, to protect their husbands’ “ honor ,” and never to refuse his physical demands. As Gullalai, director of a women’s organization called Khwendo Kor (“Sister’s Home” in Pashto) puts it, “What they think are women’s rights are not what we think are women’s rights.”

The debate about whether to pursue women’s rights in a secular or religious framework has continued since the 1980s, when progressive feminism first began to gain momentum in Pakistan. Though women’s movements existed in Pakistan from the country’s beginnings, they mobilized in new ways when Zia-ul-Haq’s military dictatorship instituted a fundamentalist form of Islamic law. Under the system, fornication and adultery became punishable by stoning and whipping, murder was privatized under the Qisas and Diyat law (providing a loophole for perpetrators of “honor killings”), and women’s testimony was only worth half of men’s in court.

These laws spurred the formation in 1981 of the Women Action Forum (WAF), a network of activists who lobby for secular, progressive women’s rights. On February 12, 1983, the WAF and Pakistan Women Lawyers’ Association organized a march against the discriminatory laws, only to be attacked, baton charged, and tear gassed by policemen in the streets of Lahore. The date became known as a “black day for women’s rights,” Naz says, and was later declared Pakistan’s National Women’s Day.

Tourists from Karachi pose for a selfie overlooking the Karakoram mountain range in the Hunza valley. The group of young women came to "escape city life," they said.

Since then, Pakistan’s military has grown stronger and more entrenched in its control of both state and economy. The 2018 elections saw the unprecedented inclusion of extremist and militant sectarian groups running for office, including a UN-declared terrorist with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. At the same time, hundreds of people were killed or injured by a series of pre-election suicide attacks.

Some conservative movements have become far more popular than the progressive women’s movement. Some scholars explain the appeal of these faith-based organizations as a channel for women to exercise agency and autonomy by pointedly embracing a non-Western form of womanhood. It’s a different definition of empowerment. Its adherents also avoid the shame, pressure, and physical threat that secular feminists regularly face. “They have the support of religion and acceptance in society, so they are in expansion—and we are shrinking,” Naz said.

Days before Pakistan’s general elections, 50-year-old activist and human rights defender Bushra Khaliq encouraged rural women to vote. A longtime campaigner for women’s rights and labor rights, Khaliq has survived social and state-level attacks on her work. In 2017, the Ministry of Interior and home department of Pakistan accused Khaliq’s organization of performing “anti-state activities.” Khaliq took her case to the Lahore High Court and won the right to continue working.

Gulalai Ismail, a 32-year-old Pashtun human rights activist, founded Aware Girls, an organization combatting violence against women, at age 16. The group aims to educate and mobilize girls and women against social oppression, especially in her home province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At the time of this portrait, Ismail and Aware Girls were charged with blasphemy for undertaking “immoral” activities and for challenging harmful religious traditions.

Gulalai, who chooses to go by one name to protest the custom of taking a man’s name, runs a women’s organization called Khwendo Kor in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She conducts weekly feminist reading sessions in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The meetings bring women teachers, doctors, and nonprofit workers together to read and discuss the intersection of gender, class, economic inequality and nationalism. “Living in this part of the world and being a woman, how can one not be a feminist?” Gulalai said. “There is no other option.”

There is a third group of women in Pakistan who don’t connect with either secular feminism or conservative ideology – women who are just trying to survive, said Saima Jasam, a researcher who focuses on women’s and minority rights in Pakistan at the German Heinrich Böll Foundation . Jasam grew up in a Hindu family that decided to stay in Lahore after partition. She witnessed her parents being stabbed to death in her home when she was 15 years old. “The person who stabbed my father said he’d dreamed that he had to kill Hindus,” Jasam said. Though the rest of her family was in India, Jasam insisted on finishing her studies in Lahore, where she fell in love with a Muslim man and converted to Islam to marry him. A year later, he died in an accident. Jasam was pregnant and lost her child. She was 25 years old. At 27, she began working on women’s issues, eventually writing a book on “honor” killings and doing fieldwork.

Jasam’s way of ignoring criticism and conservative pressure is to focus on protecting the vulnerable. “They are facing a different level of patriarchy: food insecurity, health insecurity. They’re just surviving,” Jasam said. Secular women—which, to secular activists, doesn’t mean anti-religion, but anti-conflation of religion and state—are the ones who have secured legislative change to protect women better over the last 20 years.

Rukhshanda Naz, a lawyer and activist who runs a women’s shelter in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, stands with one of the Afghan women in her shelter. The 23-year-old Afghan woman fled Kabul after being beaten, kidnapped, and sexually assaulted for refusing marriage to a Taliban member. “Women’s solidarity should be without ethnicity or borders,” said Naz. “We want to live a life which our mothers didn’t have a chance and their mothers didn’t have a chance [to live], a life with rights and dignity.”

Gullalai, who is originally from FATA and spends much of her time engaging women in the most tribal and conservative parts of Pakistan, said the gap between feminist beliefs and Pakistani reality requires pragmatic compromise. She works to meet women where they are. It’s easy to convince women that they should have inheritance rights, for example, but there are religious texts which state women should have only half a share. “So women will say, ‘Oh, we want half,’” Gullalai said. Personally, she believes women should have an equal share, but she won’t bring it into conversations in the tribal setting. Gullalai said, “At the moment we are even advocating for half!”

Sometimes Pakistani feminists compromise to engage Jasam’s “third group” of women; other times, those women inspire feminists toward more radical activism.

In the rural Okara district of Punjab province, women have long played a leading role in a farmers’ movement against military land grabs. They have used thappas —wooden sticks used in laundry—to face down brutal Pakistani paramilitary forces that have beaten, murdered, detained, and tortured local farmers and their children. Khaliq openly aligned with this farmers’ movement in 2016, speaking up in solidarity with them. In response, the Ministry of Interior widely circulated a letter accusing her NGO of unspecified activities “detrimental to national/strategic security.”

A memorial to Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani prime minister, sits at the site of her assassination in December 2007 during a political rally in Rawalpindi, Punjab province. Bhutto was the first woman to rule a democratic Islamic nation and took a stark stance against religious extremism. Throughout her time in politics, she was threatened by the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and local extremist groups.

Members of the Awami National Party (ANP), a leftist Pashtun nationalist party, rally in a rural area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the lead-up to Pakistan’s 2018 election. ANP is one of Pakistan’s most secular, liberal parties. A few days after the rally, ANP leader Haroon Bilous was killed in Peshawar by a suicide attacker. No women were at the rally.

In 2017, Khaliq went to court to defend herself and her organization. Her NGO had been training women to protect themselves against harassment, she argued. How was that detrimental to national security? Khaliq won.

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Women are Khaliq’s inspiration. “These are ordinary and illiterate women who spend their whole lives in homes, but they stand up and fight against army brutalities,” she says. “They are ahead of the men. I feel my responsibility to go shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Their strength gives us more strength.”

Outside the political-participation meeting house in Shahdara, open gutters spilled onto the village streets, flies buzzing around cows and carts moving through the uneven dirt alleys.

Khaliq first met this group of women six years ago, she said, following her usual method of engaging rural women: knocking on doors one by one, asking for the women, bringing them to weekly meetings, building a sisterhood. In the lead-up to the most recent election, her women’s groups went door-to-door throughout small villages, asking women if they had ID cards and bringing mobile vans to register them if they didn’t. They’d found more than 20,000 women unregistered in one district, Khaliq said, and managed to get identification cards for 7,000 of them.

“Ten years ago, we were not aware of our basic rights. Now we know how to work for our own choices,” said 48-year-old Hafeezah Bibi, standing up in a bright teal scarf. She was the only woman on Shahdara’s local council, which rarely addressed what she called “poor women’s problems”: overflowing garbage dumps, broken sewage systems, and exploitative wages. “They don’t listen to us, but we keep asking and arguing,” she said.

Another woman, Parveen Akhtar, said she’d been stitching shoe straps at home for 300 rupees ($2.45) a day, without knowing what others made or whether she could get a higher wage. After joining the group, she’d learned about labor laws and organizing—and demanded a raise. “I only got 5 rupees higher,” she said, “But we have a long way to go.”

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Women Education In Pakistan

Women play a great role in the human progress and have an important place in the society. They are not at all inferior to the men. They are fully capable of sharing the responsibilities of life shoulder to shoulder. Men and women have been rightly compared to the wheels of a carriage. In the early days of Islam, women work side by side with men. On the battlefield, they nursed the injured, kept up the supplies, and even fought bravely. But in all such cases, they are one thing that is certainly lacking in women, and that is the education sector. Do all women have equal rights to men then why they are falling behind in the education category? These are some answers that will be there when you grasp enough information about Women’s Education In Pakistan. All the women in Pakistan should be educated at different levels. In advanced countries like Japan, France, Britain, and Germany women enjoy a very respectable position. This education standard gives the woman a sole chance to make her life successful and better. There is no such field in Pakistan that does not open the gateway to success for Pakistani women after completing their education.

“Nation’s progress is impossible without trained and educated mothers. If the women of my country are not educated, about half the people will be ignorant. “To educate a girl means to educate a future family line. It is the mother who is the first teacher of the child. If she no light, how can she light the child lamp.”

In the private sector, there are a maximum of 2,744,303 schools that accompany almost 1,508,643 boys and 1,235,660 girls. This percentage survey surely shows the actual presenting conditions of the education that is a maximum of five percent less than the men. In rural schools, there is an amount of 66% of boys in the schools and almost 62% are girls.

These small teenage girls would definitely be the bread earner of their families in the future and would be a mother and women one day they are less with such a decreased amount of girls in schools. Not just the schools but the degree-level colleges are much less filled with girls. It therefore explained Women’s Education In Pakistan. The government of Pakistan has also passed a bill regarding the education stand of women and each year special funds are allocated for education but still hopelessly no new measures are being taken by the Government. Well, it is undoubtedly a sad condition but if women are supported in Pakistan in the education sector then they will surely beat down every single competitor on an international level.

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Importance of Women Education by Ms. Esha Nawaz

Napoleon was once asked what the most important need of France was during his reign. He replied,” Nation’s progress is impossible without trained and educated mothers. If the women of my country are not educated about half of the people will be ignorant.” Education for women is highly imperative as it develops them as an individual who play a pivotal role in a society, are well informed and independent. They are the ones who lead to the upbringing of children and fulfill the duty of educating them along the way. A famous saying is that “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” It means that a mother exercises great influence over the lives of her children. She is able to mold their thoughts and character.

Regardless of this, there is a plethora of people who do not want to educate their women because of the simple fact they think that women do not need and deserve education. It is thought by them that women are to take care of everyone except themselves. That they have to take care of the children and have to stay home due to this, clean up the house, and be the self-denying wife and mother who would have to give up her career for them.

 They think that the life of a woman is mainly based on getting married, having children, and being bombarded by details of domesticity but they do not understand that education is very important for women not only for them but for a whole family because women are the mothers of the future generation. If women are uneducated, the future generations will face numerous challenges.

Women are the soul of a society and the society can be judged upon how they treat their women. History is replete with evidences that the societies in which women were treated equally to men and were educated had prospered and grew economically over time. It would be a mistake to leave women behind in the goal of sustainable development.

There are approximately sixty-five million girls out of school across the globe, majority of them being in the developing and underdeveloped countries. All the countries of the world must take necessary steps to improve their condition of female education as women can play a vital role in the nation’s development and progress. If we consider society as a tree, then men are like its strong main stem which supports the tree to face the elements and women are like its roots; the nurturer and the ones that keep the society together. The stronger the roots are, the bigger and stronger the tree will be.  

With the help of education, women can be aware of their rights and how they should be treated. Women belong to a relatively weaker section of the society as they suffer from many handicaps due to rigid rules on their freedom, outdated social customs and religious practices. An educated woman cannot be exploited as easily, as she knows and is aware of her individuality and rights. She will not be easily suppressed. Education of women can also help in eradicating many social evils such as dowry problems that plague all parents, unemployment problem and others.

Women should be educated so that they are more conscious of the world and know how to solve their problems. It should be compulsory for all women to attend school and get enlightened. Sure enough, most women would excel and prosper. Women in the past have striven to be excellent and they should be considered as a source of inspiration as well. Women like Marie Curie who got the Nobel Prize in chemistry and physics, Rosalind Franklin who as an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer who made contributions to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA, Ada Lovelace who was the first computer programmer that made an influential contribution to the analytical engine and others like them that stretched the boundaries laid down on women’s education and are still an inspiration to behold.

As a result, this means that when given an opportunity to learn and grow women could excel and lead to greatness. Women education should be supported as it is equally important and beneficial.  Efforts should be made to disseminate women literacy and awareness. As simply marginalizing or discounting them is not an option anymore. Moreover, an educated woman is better equipped with skills that can help her tackle multiple challenges. Hence, concrete steps should be taken to empower women through education.

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Barriers to Female Education in Pakistan

2018, Sociology Paper: Barriers to Female Education in Pakistan

This paper seeks to discuss the various problems faced by the women of Pakistan in terms of education which has led to some of the lowest literacy rates in the world.

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Hadaitullah Baqri

The right to education is identified as a human right and is understood to establish an entitlement to free for all also compulsory primary education for all children. An obligations to the secondary education accessible to all children as well as access to higher education. The right to education is one of the most fundamental right but also human right. The right to education to eliminate discrimination at all levels of the educational system, to set minimum standards and to improve quality of education. The education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The human rights shall promoting understanding and friendship among all nations, religious or racial groups and shall further the activities of the united nations for the maintenance of peace. This right to education is most fundamental as a human right. Education promotes a man, as individual freedom, and it shown way of life, change the thinking, and it makes smart. In fact the progress of any society largely depends on the effectiveness of its educational system and the best educational system is that which gives equal opportunities of getting education to all its members. Female literacy plays a very significant and crucial role in the development of nation especially in the economic development of a country. But female education in Pakistan is not good. In other word we can say very bad. Thousands of girls' leace the school because of various socio-cultural and economic reasons and gender prejudices. Due to this reason they are unable to play active role in the development of society. This study reflects the views of women activist about the role of females in national development and suggests necessary measures for improvement of the situation. This research is focusing on women right to education, its importance and its effects on society and socioeconomic as well as socio-political betterment of Pakistan. As for Women education refers to every form of education that aims at improving the knowledge, and skill of women and girls. It includes general education at schools and colleges, vocational and technical education, professional education, health education, etc. Women education is a need of encompasses both literary and non-literary education in Pakistan.

Kiran Jameel

—The women considered to have an important role in building the society. This role of women can be further bettered by educating them so that they can differentiate between the right and wrong and pass only the right thing to their generations. In Pakistan, the population of women was higher than men but as the country was still in the developing phase so the literacy rate of the population was very low which is lower in women of the country. The literature focused on analyzing the situation of women education in Pakistan. The government should allocate more quotas for women in governmental organizations and should try to ensure that all the private sector organizations also work on equal employment opportunities. The girls should be educated to build a better nation.

Dr. hamzo khan tagar

Asian Social Science

Riffat Awan

Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences

Muhammad Ijaz khan

Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews

Muhammad Kamran , Roshan saeed

Purpose of the study: This study finds the barriers responsible for females' low literacy in the Balochistan province of Pakistan at the primary school level. Methodology: Qualitative research design was applied to this study. Data were collected through the interview tool and were analyzed through a thematic analysis procedure. Results were given in the form of major themes and sub-themes. Main Findings: This study gave 4 major results, which were in the form of four major themes, i.e., lack of basic facilities, lack of qualified teachers, lack of enrolment, and financial constraints. The major themes were categorized into several sub-themes. Applications of this study: This study is beneficial and applicable in Pakistani society. It attracts the attention of the layman and government to focus on female education to make the females literate at the best level. Novelty/Originality of this study: The new aspect of this study was to show the barriers responsible for females' low literacy. It is aware of the readers that lack of basic facilities, lack of qualified teachers, lack of enrolment, and financial constraints are the barriers to females' low literacy. It also advances the existing knowledge and bridges the gap between past and existing knowledge.

Pakistan Journal of Educational Research

fauzia ghani

Education is a holistic approach for peace, progress and bringing change in a society. Women equipped with higher education play a significant role in development of a country. The socio-economic and political uplift of a society largely depends on women higher education. Almost all the developed countries of the world give equal attention and consideration to boys as well as girls education; however higher education in underdeveloped states including Pakistan is the most neglected sector. In developing countries including Pakistan one of the major causes of lagging behind economically and socially is absence of technically qualified and highly educated women. Since its inception Pakistan has faced many serious issues in education sector and the education system has failed to deliver to the aspirations of the people. However, literacy rate in Pakistan since 2014 has sustainably increased from 56 percent to 59 percent, however the ratio and proportion of girls is 43 percent as compar...

Socio Cultural Factors of Female Literacy

Female literacy is considered lower due to social and cultural factors. The sociocultural factors effect female literacy but the education of females play main role in development of society as well as country. The objective of study was follows; firstly, to explain the social factors that act as barrier to female education. Secondly to investigate the cultural factors responsible for girls education. The methodology for data collection was Descriptive. Methods selected for study was Survey method. The tools used for study was Questionnaire. The sample of 50 students was selected from university graduate from Bachelor and master degree. The unit of analysis was educated females. The study was significant to highlights the importance of female education in relation to their contribution to development. It also explain the main social and cultural constrains that lower female education. It also highlights the importance of female education in the perspective of educated females.

Sultan Alam

This paper reports a study conducted in one of the villages of Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan. The purpose of the study is to explore the perceptions of female students and their parents regarding female education. A qualitative case study method was employed to investigate the subject matter. The participants were selected on the basis of predetermined criteria. The findings of the study showed that female education in the context is influenced by various factors including societal norms, parents perceptions and teachers attitude. It was depicted that female students have adapted such critical circumstances and are motivated to acquire their education. Since the role of society is directly associated with the attitude of female education, and their success depends upon active involvement of whole society, therefore the study recommends that this aspect must be given more attention to further strengthen the female education in our society. This ultimately can improve societal performa...

irum sheikh

Women’s education has been identified as one of the primary agents of transformation towards development. However, illiteracy among women is one of the major challenges facing most of the underdeveloped countries. This study investigates the physical and infrastructural impediments that hamper women’s education. The study was conducted in Amandara; sub-village of Malakand Division Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan. A comprehensive survey was made with the help of pre-designed formula with structure questions. The data was collected from 250 respondents (educated female having graduation) with the help of purposive sampling technique. It has been concluded that physical and infrastructural obstacles contributes in women’s vulnerability regarding education. The study recommends that increase in female schools, colleges, transport and infrastructural facilities will promote women’s education in the area.

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Education for Women in Pakistan English essay with quotations

 The students of 2nd year class 12 can see the following essay. It is in the smart syllabus 2020 - 21 for 2nd year English. The essay on the importance of female education in Pakistan has been given here. The essay on education for women in Pakistan is an outstanding version. The is specially written for 2nd year and college level and degree level students.

Impact of internet on youth essay

Education for Women Essay with quotations

The essay includes quotations and an outline. Students can get good marks with an essay including an outline and quotations.

Importance of Female Education English Essay

You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation - Brigham Young

Women should be treated as human beings, not as domestic animals

Seeking knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim (Man and woman).

No nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men.

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admin on 2022-09-21

Education is an important factor for every human being and serves the same purpose in everyone’s life but still, there are more women in this world who are deprived of education than men.

In Pakistan, the education sector faces a lot of issues and one of them is education for women. A lot of thesis help , bring the statistics to the surface according to which, out of the total population of Pakistan, only 59 percent of people are educated.

Out of these 59 percent educated people, 71 percent are men and only 47 percent are women. Over the years hundreds of steps were taken to minimize the gap but the situation is quite the contrary. The number of literate women has not increased instead it has decreased in the past years.

It’s important for a woman to get a quality education, the same way as men because; women will be responsible for teaching and grooming the younger generation. If a mother is not well educated or doesn’t have a will to teach her kids, chances are the kids will also remain uneducated.

Educated women will help bring stability to the economy because the returns for education are fairly greater for women than men. The lower level of woman education doesn’t have a positive impact on the economy and paints an image of a backward society.

It is important for an underdeveloped country like Pakistan to pay special attention to women’s education because the country is in dire need of well-educated and sensible people who can bring a better change in this country.

Also, no country in the world can develop and become successful if the women of that country are not given equal opportunities as men. One of the biggest reasons why Pakistan struggles to grow and become financially stable is that most women here are not treated with the equality they deserve because the importance of a boy getting education is more.

According to the constitution of Pakistan, article thirty-seven indicates that it is a fundamental right of every female citizen of Pakistan to get an education but due to gender discrepancies and some other factors every female is not getting the education she deserves.

If we take a look at the statistics of the pre-primary level of education, in both the public and private sectors, the number of girls enrolled in the schools is lesser than the boys.

In the public sector, 57% are boys and 43% are girls while the percents in the private sector are 55 and 45 respectively.

But if we look at the degree level education, female students outnumber male students by a big margin. In public sector institutions, female students are 62% while male students are only 38%.

 The level of education provided by the public sector in Pakistan is already questionable. Although the PTI government has made promises to ensure a high-quality education for every citizen of Pakistan. Also, this government claims to understand the importance of women’s education and has taken many different steps to be more inclusive of women not only in terms of education but in every other factor as well.

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Join Pakistan Navy Through PN Cadet 2024 Online Registration

Pakistan Navy has announced the registration schedule for  the PN Cadet Course for Permanent Commission Term 2024-B.  Male Candidates having Intermediate (F.SC, O Level, A-Levels) qualifications from all over Pakistan are eligible to apply. Females (Girls) are not eligible for PN Cadet Term 2024 offered by the Pak Navy. Selected candidates will be offered a permanent commission rank on completion of 02 years of training at the Pakistan Naval Academy. A BS degree shall also be conferred on the successful completion of the following areas:

Operations Branch, Weapon Engineering Branch, Marine Engineering Branch, and Supply Engineering Branch in BS (MIS), BE (Electronics), BS (Mechanical), and BS (Supply Chain Management) respectively. Registration for the PN Cadet course starts on May 26, 2024. The last date to apply for the Pakistan Navy Cadet course is June 09, 2024. Selected candidates may also be sent abroad for MSc and PhD.

Eligibility Criteria for PN Cadet Pak Navy

Matric with F.SC or O/A level with 60% marks in any of the following subjects;

• Physics, Mathematics, and Chemistry.
• Physics, Maths, and Computer Science.
• Physics, Maths, and Statistics.

O/A level qualifiers must have to submit equivalency certificates.

Candidates having F.SC Part-I Clear with 65% marks and appearing in Part-II may also apply on the basis of a hope certificate.

Eligibility Criteria for Pak Navy PN Cadet Course 2023:-

• Unmarried Male Citizens of Pakistan
• Civilian Candidates: 16 1/2 - 21 Years
• Service Candidates: 17-23 Years (Armed Forces Only)
• Height: 5 feet 4-inch minimum

OTHER BENEFITS

• Free Medical treatment of self/family and parents.
• Family accommodation or house rent allowance and servant facility or allowance after marriage.
• Opportunities for visits/courses/ assignments abroad.
• 50% Concession for self/family on travel by Air/Railways.
• Subsidized education of children in Bahria Colleges/universities and various professional institutions. 

PAK Navy Selection Procedure for PN Cadet:

The selection process and test-interviews schedule would consist of the following;

• The entrance test will be communicated by the respective PNR & SC through SMS after improvement in the Covid-19 pandemic situation.
• E-testing/ Computer-based tests will be conducted in the following subjects: A. Intelligence Test B. Academic Test (English, Maths, Physics & General Knowledge)
• The exact date for the entrance test would be intimated to each Individual through SMS by the respective PN Recruitment and Selection Center.
• The result will be intimated to each Individual on Completion of E-testing.
• Results for the candidates of AJ & K who appeared at PNR & SC Muzaffarabad will be intimated on the PN website: www.joinpaknavy.gov.pk 
• Preliminary Medical/Interview, Application forms will be issued to those candidates who qualify for the entrance test. Preliminary medical and interviews will be conducted at respective PNR & SCs.
• Only shortlisted candidates would be called for tests/interviews.at ISSB.
• Medical Examination of ISSB recommended candidates at the nearest CMH/ Naval Hospital.
• Final Selection by Naval Headquarters on merit.

​Note: The candidates are advised to get their Ears and teeth cleaned by a specialist doctor prior to reporting for medical examination. 

How To Register for the PN Cadet Course Pakistan Navy?

Candidates may register themselves by visiting the Pakistan Navy website (https:// www.joinpaknavy.gov.pk) from May 26 to June 09, 2024.

• Applications sent directly to the Recruitment Directorate at Naval Headquarters will not be entertained.
• Online registered candidates must bring a postal order of Rs. 300/-(Crossed in the name of Director of Recruitment NHQ Islamabad). 

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