Women employability in post war scenario
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012 11:06:45 by Fayyaz Yaseen
Women employability in post war scenario
After the fall of twin-towers in New York, USA, the undisputed leader of the then uni-polar world, blaming Alqaeda leaders for the incident, decided to engage in pursuit of the guilty in Afghanistan. The decision to uproot the
potential terrorists’ nursery and to make this world a safer place for all culminated in America along with its allies waging a decade old ongoing war on terror in the country, to which, Pakistan was an ally that lied at the forefront.
As the war lingered on, given tough time and beaten by the allied forces, some of the Taliban and Alqaeda leaders decided to move to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – one of Pakistan’s provinces having joint borders with Afghanistan. Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, for having hard liner religious views that emphasize on engaging in Jihad (holy war against infidel invaders) provided the Taliban leaders conducive environment to exploit the local emotions and gather support.
Starting with preaching and implementing their version of Islam, as the Taliban leaders gained power and influence, they started to intervene in the state’s affairs at the local level, the brunt to which was mainly born by the
women. Right after assuming significant hold on the local society, they stopped the women from engaging in economic activities and to remain confined in the four walls of their houses. Closing the doors of education upon them, they burnt over 250 female schools
in the province.
With the Taliban forcefully recruiting most of the local men in their armies, and remaining suffering from injuries and deaths due to the indiscriminate attacks by the security forces, the household incomes in the conflict zones
fell drastically. Finally, as the security forces in Pakistan decided to wage operation to get rid of these localized Taliban, they evacuated most of the areas displacing hundreds of thousands of families which mainly comprised of women and children. In the
absence of male heads of families, it fell upon women’s shoulder to take care of and fulfill the financial needs of their children and elderly in their families.
Despite intermittent military operations, beginning in the north-western part of the province, the conflict engulfed a large part of the province in relatively short period of time. The peace in the areas could only be restored
in late 2010 when finally, most of the Taliban leaders were either killed captured or fled to Afghanistan.
During this period, the conflict led to immense suffering in terms of thousands of deaths and injuries. It also caused major economic disruption and placed tremendous hardships on the local population.
Before Taliban eruption, in terms of women employment most of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa areas were far ahead of rest of the provinces of Pakistan as due to their skilled artisan work, which had evolved into a growing local industry,
they had access to local, national and international markets and their produce had a high demand. Now, as the peace is being restored in the area, women have once again taken up to employability. While most of them still prefer to remain engaged in artisan,
agricultural and other relevant jobs, still many of them now aspire for greater economic role.
Given this scenario, although there has been research work on rehabilitation of the families in the post war scenario, but no research institute has so far precisely dwelled on to determine how armed conflict in Pakistan affected
women’s decisions about participating in market work. In particular, women may join the labor force in an ‘added worker’ effect as they try to compensate for declines in household in income caused by losses in their husbands’ earnings due to conflict related
disruptions, migration, injuries and deaths.
Evidence from a number of industrialized countries suggests that the added worker effect was strong during the World Wars and the Great Depression, but it has become less important over time as women’s status in the labor marked
improved. However, much of the improvement in women’s status is limited to the labor markets of more developed economies. A small but growing number of studies for developing countries point to a substantial added worker effect, especially during past three
financial crisis.
In such scenarios, households in developing countries cope with declines in income by sending household members to seek employment in paid work. Further, cross-country evidence indicates that women’s labor supply, particularly
in Asia and Latin America, is counter-cyclical. That is women engage in more employment and self-employment when aggregate income falls.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s suffering from over a decade-long conflict was likely to have impacts on women’s employment probabilities as the phase caused major disruptions to family life. Not only did it culminate in widespread mortality,
especially among men, it also led towards family separations, disabilities and mental traumas. Thus, women, who had to take a leading position in the family, had to work more to fulfill their role of sole bread-winners. Another major reason that may have induced
greater labor force participation on women’s part was through displacement of men in the households. Generally, men temporarily left homes to seek work or security for the family. Hence, the conflict rendered women burdened with additional work through different
channels.
In this context, some important research questions that need to be investigated in detail may include, but not remain confined to the following: What are the determinants of female labour demand in key production sectors of conflict
affected zones of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, what are the determinants of female labour supply in key production sectors of conflict affected zones of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, what is the impact of public and private sector-wise investment on female employment, what is
the impact of foreign-funded projects on female employment, and what is the impact of above-mentioned investments on disaggregated sector-wise female employment under skilled and unskilled segment.
Moreover, additional questions including: How can economic growth programme can be made more gender-responsive which, both in short and long term, may also stimulate female employment in the target areas, how do the formal economic
growth programmes impact female employment in informal sector, what was the impact of stipend programme for female students on female employment in conflict prone districts, which outreach programme has the highest impact on female employment in conflict zones
and does the increased female labour force participation impact key export items of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province also need to be answered.
The writer is a researcher at Sustainable Development Policy Institute and may be approached at
fayyaz@sdpi.org
Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=15690
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Very interesting, I think this sort of situation is often ignored. Previous research has pointed to links between female labor force participation and terrorism, but always from the opposite direction (female labor force participation influencing terrorism).