The Unbalanced Scale: Gender, Work and Productivity

Pakistan has one of the lowest female labour force participation rates in the South Asian region ( 22% ), compared to 35% in Bangladesh and 37% in India. This means half of Pakistan’s population remains largely untapped in formal employment, as women are predominantly involved in informal or home-based work. In this episode, Dr. Farah Said and Dr. Uzma Afzal talk about the gender dynamics affecting productivity and the impact on overall productivity levels on marginal communities because of the male/female gender ratios.

Dr. Farah Said is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, LUMS. In her work, Dr Said used field and lab experiments to study the dynamics of poverty and gender in LMICs. She was previously a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB), an Assistant Professor at the Lahore School of Economics, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Göttingen.   

Dr. Uzma Afzal is an assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, LUMS. Her research interests lie in behavioral and experimental economics, as well as applied microeconomics, exploring topics at the intersection of development and health economics, gender, and household dynamics