ccording to the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook report, Pakistan’s unemployment rate, which declined to 6.2 percent in 2022, is projected to increase 6.4 percent in 2023. According to Trading Economics, in the long-term, the rate is projected to trend around 6.4 percent in 2023 and 8.5 percent in 2024.

The post-pandemic recovery phase and the turbulence the global economy is experiencing are having far reaching impacts on economic patterns in developing countries like Pakistan.

According to preliminary World Bank estimates – in the absence of decisive relief and recovery efforts to help the poor – the national poverty rate may increase by 2.5 to 4 percentage points, pushing between 5.8 million and 9 million people into poverty. Inflation is expected to hover around 23 percent in 2023, reflecting flood-related disruptions to the supply of food and other goods, higher energy prices and difficult external conditions. The high inflation will disproportionately affect the poor.

Despite its claims of race- and gender-neutrality, neoliberalism has resulted in a notable expansion in the low-wage, part-time dependent service sector and outsourced manufacturing work that relies disproportionately on marginalised women in the informal economy. The drastic expansion of the sector on a global scale has intensified their exploitation and reshaped the labour market.

The growing employment sectors tend to lack benefits and labour protections; full-time, well-paid manufacturing jobs are on the decline. This shift in the labour market has resulted in women increasingly carrying the burden of financially supporting the families by entering informal contracts in manufacturing chains.

Neoliberalism has also created a new political, economic and cultural context through deregulation, privatisation, securitisation and the dismantling of the welfare state. These changes have had a negative impact on women, especially in the context of equality of wages and social security.

This has overturned the benefits of social welfare citizenship especially in low-income countries, limiting those to the organised sector. The reduction or elimination of welfare benefits for the poor have led to an increase in women’s workloads.

Women have less access now to economic resources and are, therefore, compelled to enter or turn to the private sector or increase their own unpaid labour.

Women in Pakistan are underrepresented in labour force. In national statistics, they make up a small portion of the waged work and are over represented as “contribution family workers,” mostly unpaid. Where women are paid in informal settlements, it is mostly piece-rate work. Most of the women engaged in the piece-rate work are concentrated in the garments and textile value chain in low-skill, low-payment and sub-contracted work.

Women are prominently participating in paid employment. However, a large proportion of them are in low quality, irregular employment.

The female work force participation in Pakistan is 24 percent. For several reasons, women workers in the informal economy are some of the poorest. They bear a double burden in social life: poverty, and gender bias. They constitute a majority of the agricultural workforce but many of them work without any remuneration.

As the informal sector is growing rapidly, the burden on the women in the garments and textile industries is increasing. With corporations subcontracting work to the second and third tiers, the work is provided to informal workers residing close to the industrial zones on conditions implied by the contractor. Thus, a huge amount of invisible work force is absorbed by the small and medium enterprises.

Women are prominently participating in paid employment. However, a large proportion of them are in low quality, irregular employment.

The women in domestic help sector come from poor rural communities settled in urban areas. A lack of mechanisms to provide job seekers work closer to their homes makes these women leave their homes and come to the cities for domestic work.

The dependency in seeking employment and placement has led to the commodification of women in service. Exploitation by the middle person is common. This is also pushing women from marginalised communities into low-wage and precarious work without any protection and complaints mechanism.

The women in the informal economy, mostly in the garments and textile supply chains, are exposed to severe discrimination and vulnerabilities. With low wages, no work security, lack of access to social protection, collective bargaining, and collective voices, the women are left with no fallback. Industries and employers are not ready to ensure implementation of minimum wage laws, provide social protection and protect them against work place harassment. Issues like modern slavery and unpaid work are aggravating the situation.

In recent decades, economic growth in Pakistan has not contributed to balanced social development, primarily due to high levels of population growth. As a result, many of its social indicators do not match the significant levels of economic growth.

The garments sector can create new opportunities for engaging the workforce, including women. On the whole, workers in global supply chains do not benefit in terms of increased salaries, job security, social security and organised unions.

In the absence of a comprehensive social protection framework, it is challenging to retain the workforce in decent work and show increase in the women labour force protection.

The country is experiencing severe post-Covid inflation, food insecurity and dwindling social protection. The federal social protection scheme, Ehsaas, has shrunk due to the political crisis and rifts between federating units. The pandemic has fed the authoritarian and patriarchal tendencies in governments. This has resulted in numerous violations of human rights and women’s rights, including a rise in violence against women and girls. Low women participation in the workers’ representative bodies and political parties remains a challenge for women and feminist movements in Pakistan.

The writer is a rights activist. She can be reached at lailazharali@gmail.com