Women's education and Pakistan's economy

 

  Currently, Pakistan is facing the worst economic crisis of its history. There are numerous reasons of this grim situation. And, experts have been writing dozens of papers, articles and blogs to highlight the reasons of the issue.

  However, there is one aspect which has been failed to grab attention of the pundits. The area is unplanned growing literacy rate of women in Pakistan which has been denting the economy.

  The revelation is very bizarre but true. When education was less common among women in 50s,60s, and even upto to late 90s , they were playing pivotal role in the economy. In rural areas, they used to work in farmlands and cultivate crops and vegetables, at least for their domestic use. Due to the role,  the country was self sufficient in meeting demands of food to a greater extent.

  Similarly,  there were domestic animals - cow, buffalo and goat- in almost every house. Housewives used to get dairy products from them. There was no dearth of the daily use commodities like milk, butter, ghee and eggs. Consequently, the country had to import a few products.

  Likewise, in cities, women hemmed clothes, socks and caps and performed many other physical tasks to earn money. Therfore, the economy was on the right track.

  Moreover, women were complacent with simple life styles. They had no lust of luxuries. There were less demands of imported  beauty products and luxurious vehicles _especially on whims of wives😀_. In this way, it was easy to meet expenses of women in limited resources.Meanwhile, at national level, due to the above mentioned facts, import bills were very small and economic conditions were better than today.

  In current times, when education is  common among the women, they are not ready to perform any of the tasks mentioned in the earlier paragraph. On the other hand, due to different social, cultural and structural barriers, educated women are also unable to become part of the workforce. For example, thousands of the women having degrees of MBBS are not part of the medical field according to official statistics. In this way, the whole expenses on education of women are proving a burden both at family as well as national level.

  However, it does not mean that the society has to keep women away from education or women are responsible for the economic crisis. Rather, the governments and common people have to take every measure to educate women at different levels.

  But, as a society, we have to think that mere women education will not  work for the economic betterment. The policymakers have to understand real meanings of gender equality in a holistic way. They have to translate the slogan as per local religious and cultural values and create equal  job opportunities for the women. Otherwise,the mantra of imparting education will only exacerbate the situation.

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