THE IMPACT OF EDUCATION ON WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT CHOICES IN PAKISTAN: EVIDENCE FROM THE LABOUR FORCE SURVEY 2020-2021

Abstract

This study is an attempt to examine the effect of education levels on the employment choices of women in Pakistan. The employment choices include wage employment, self- employment, and family contributing work. This paper makes use of Pakistan Labour Force Survey 2020-2021. The sample size for the females who are currently economically participating in labour is 36,365. The estimates of the Multinomial Logistic regression model bring out the role of education in transforming employment choices for women in Pakistan. Women with higher education are more likely to take up wage employment, whose probabilities increase from 15.6% for the uneducated to 86.9% for higher education. A women with higher education has 8% probability of being self-employed while for uneducated women, it is 18.4%. For the vulnerable employment status, a women with no formal education has 67% probability of family contributing worker, while it slide down to 5% for the higher education women. The findings of the study suggest that higher education reduces the probability of self-employment and family- contributing work, which is more predominant among less-educated women. The findings underpin the fundamental necessity of investment in women's education, which will allow them to enter formal and stable employment, thereby augmenting their ability to contribute more meaningfully to the economy of Pakistan.