Unleashing Equality and Women Empowerment: Analyzing Pakistan's Path to SDG-5

Abstract

The paper provides an overview of Pakistan's achievements with regard to SDG-5, taking into account the marginal advances made in women joining the workforce and engaging politically, as well as facing remaining structural blocks. We used a mixed-method approach to embed the examined context in round data of 2019–2023 concerning three main indicators: workforce participation, political representation, and educational enrollment. Quantitative data were married with qualitative interviews and focus groups to provide a fuller view of the intricate landscape of gender in Pakistan. By contrast to the data for girls' education enrollment, and despite an incremental improvement in women's political representation within parliament, results pointed towards a marginal growth of workforce participation by women. While some important gaps remain (including in the most rigorous statistical measure available for regional comparability, creating a persistent differential in gender parity across regions), stakeholders identified sociocultural, political, and economic factors as the key barriers to empowerment, but rated current gender equality policies as only moderately effective. Pakistan is still a long way toward achieving SDG-5 and needs more focused, hard interventions. The following must be done to accelerate progress: increase the effectiveness of gender equality policies and tackle multiple barriers to women's empowerment. This study highlights the importance of concerted action from government, civil society, and international organizations in promoting both gender equality and women's empowerment across all levels of Pakistani societies.