About 70 pc of women engineers in Pakistan unemployed, reveals report

According to a regional examination of the data for the three categories, 21.1 per cent of engineering graduates lived in rural areas and 78.9 per cent were based in metropolitan areas

Islamabad: Around 70 per cent of women who graduated from engineering programmes in Pakistan are either unemployed or do not work, Dawn reported citing a study.

Labour Force Survey 2020-21, Gallup Pakistan and PRIDE collaborated to conduct the study, which revealed that 20.9 per cent of the 28,920 women who graduated with degrees in engineering were unemployed.

---

Only 28 per cent of them were still in the workforce, leaving about 50.9 per cent of them unemployed.

According to a regional examination of the data for the three categories (employed, unemployed, and not in the labour force), 21.1 per cent of engineering graduates lived in rural areas and 78.9 per cent were based in metropolitan areas. Of engineering graduates in rural areas, 43.9 per cent held a job, whereas 36.3 per cent did not have employment, Dawn reported.

Compared to the national average of 50.9 per cent, the percentage of engineering graduates in rural areas who chose to stay unemployed was significantly lower (19.8 per cent).

In metropolitan regions, 16.8 per cent of women with engineering degrees were unemployed, compared to 24 per cent who were employed. In metropolitan locations, a significant percentage of female engineering graduates (59.2 per cent) did not enter the workforce.

Of the engineering graduates who chose not to enter the workforce, little over 64 per cent were married, and 28.4 per cent were single. The age range of 25-34 years had the highest percentage of female engineering graduates (50.9 per cent), followed by the range of 35-44 years (21.7 per cent).