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September 7, 2003
Excerpts: How they feel, what they want
The Population Council, Pakistan’s survey of adolescents reveals some interesting findings on their education, work and marriage
AN EXPLORATION into education as a major transition in young people’s lives provides a picture of stark gender differences above all else. Young women in Pakistan continue to be at a disadvantage in the pursuit of education when compared to young men. The survey demonstrates that fewer than half of all young women aged 15-24 years have ever enrolled in schools. Of those who are fortunate enough to gain some education, are more likely to drop out of school at an earlier class than their male counterparts. This pattern of low enrolment for girls is magnified at the lowest socio-economic stratum. Only 20 per cent of girls from the lowest income group remain in school by the end of class five, as compared to 80 per cent of girls in the highest income group among those who ever enrolled.
While there is evidence that school enrolment is increasing for girls in the last five years, the gains are small and the gender gap remains huge. Nonetheless it is now true that for the first time in Pakistan, a majority of adolescent girls have been enrolled (54 per cent).
There is enormous variation in educational attainment across provinces, between income groups, and by rural and urban residence. Female enrolment is highest in Punjab, while, of all adolescents who were able to attend school, those in the NWFP have the greatest mean number of completed classes.
Socio-economic status played a very important role in all aspects of educational attainment. Adolescents from the lowest group, especially women, are the least likely to ever attend school. Those girls who did enrol are more likely to drop out of school at an earlier class, begin school at a later age, and complete fewer classes.
While there is evidence that cultural barriers to the education of girls persist, the survey also highlights from the community sample that there are fewer schools open to girls indicating a gender bias in public expenditure on education. Rising private school enrolment also suggests that many parents perceive the quality of government schools to be inadequate. As enrolment of boys in private schooling is rising faster than for girls, it appears that parents are willing to incur greater educational costs for their sons than for their daughters. As a result, girls from the poorest families are particularly disadvantaged.
All young people express aspirations for education well beyond the primary school level. Indeed almost all men and women feel they should be educated either to secondary or university level. There is a slight difference between rural and urban areas where young people in rural areas feel secondary education to be sufficient for girls whereas in urban areas there is more of a tendency to opt for women going to university. There appears to be a positive generation change in the attitude toward education. Young people have higher aspirations for their education than their parents. This parental lag may be holding young people back. Certainly young people’s aspirations for education at present are not being translated into reality.
The transition to work plays out very differently for young men and women in Pakistan. A minority of them appear to begin their work life as child labourers. However, child labour involves at least a third of all girls and half of all boys in the poorest quartile of the population. Child labour rates are higher in rural areas than urban areas, particularly for girls. The highest rates for both boys and girls are to be found in Sindh.
Across the provinces there appears to be a slight increase in child labour rates for boys in rural Balochistan and the NWFP. Although rates have decreased slightly in rural Punjab, they have increased slightly in urban areas. It is likely that an increase in the number of children who complete primary school would lead to a decline in child labour as this survey shows very few young people combining work with schooling.
Children from the poorest households and with the least education are the most likely to work before their 15th birthday. Although most young men eventually transition into the paid labour force, less than 40 per cent of women have entered the work force by the age of 24. Indeed, throughout their childhood and adolescent years, the majority of young women remain invisible in that they are neither attending school nor engaging in economic work.
Although female domestic work was not discussed, time-use data demonstrated the heavy domestic burden carried by women who do not attend school. Most young people who have never worked express a desire to work in the future.
Among young people who work, the most common type of employment is in the agriculture sector. Other employment domains are segregated by gender, with many young women engaged in stitching, embroidery, and knitting, while young men work in factories, are self-employed, or are engaged in skilled labour. Young girls are also much more likely to work at home. Young boys work, on an average, longer hours than young girls; however, young girls are more likely to engage in seasonal work than boys. Young girls are slightly less likely to receive their pay directly, but if they do, they are more likely to be able to keep it.
For young people growing up in Pakistan there are limited opportunities for vocational training and work. In urban areas most vocational training opportunities for men are in computer centres or apprenticeships in mechanical or electrical workshops.
Fewer avenues are open to women and are often limited to handicrafts, or for the literate, computer centres. In rural areas, opportunities are very narrow for both sexes, primarily consisting of mechanical workshops for men and handicrafts for women. Work opportunities are also limited, particularly in rural areas. Waged labour, industry, and some private service work are available for men, while industry, private service, and some government jobs are available for women. Agricultural work and waged labour are almost the only options in rural areas.
Gender disparities define many of the attitudes, decision making processes, timing, and interpretation of puberty, marriage, and childbearing among young people in Pakistan.
Although the onset of puberty occurs earlier for girls than for boys, girls are less likely to be informed about the event in advance and are less likely to be among peers in school when it occurs. Thus among those who do gain some information, boys obtain information from male peers, while girls learn from their mothers.
Of particular interest is the gap between the onset of puberty and the time of marriage for young girls. This gap is increasing, due to the increased age at marriage, but there is little evidence that there is substantive skills-enhancing activity to fill this increasing gap. Boys are much more likely to be in school and working during this period. But with limited mobility and acceptable activities in the public sphere, an unmarried post-pubescent girl has few opportunities to enhance herself and define herself outside of her relationship to her family.
While age at marriage has increased for both men and women over the past fifty years, women continue to marry at a significantly younger age than their male counterparts, and rural residents tend to marry much earlier than those in urban areas. A rural adolescent girl is more than twice as likely to be married before age 20 as her urban peer (58 per cent versus 27, respectively). While the level of marriage is much lower for men, the relative rural effect is even stronger: 18 per cent of rural versus 5 per cent of urban men are married by age 20. Although provincial differences exist, these basic patterns are quite consistent within each province. Adolescent marriage is also strongly associated with school attendance for girls, although it appears to have only a nominal effect on boys.
Critical to any discussion of the transition to marriage are the economic aspects that are either implicit or explicit in the process. The most explicit economic component of marriage is the dowry, the combination of money and goods that are transferred from the bride’s family to the groom’s family at the time of marriage. The dowry is a common and almost universal practice throughout Pakistan. A major concern for a prospective bride is that she has a sufficient dowry. This was highlighted in the two issues identified by household respondents for the delay of marriage for women: lack of economic resources and trouble arranging dowry.
Transfers in the other direction (from the groom’s family to the bride and her family) are much less prevalent. However, the economic pressures of the groom-to-be are also significant as they include current as well as future/potential economic status. In citing reasons for later marriage among men, household respondents cited lack of economic resources and delay due to search for employment. When asked why a certain age is appropriate for marriage, the large majority of young people and household respondents stated that men at that age would have financial means or a job, making him ready for marriage. Thus the young woman is pressured to have sufficient means going into the marriage (dowry), while a young man needs to bring a respectable amount, but more importantly identify his potential to provide into the future.
Childbearing is closely linked to marriage in Pakistan and therefore questions concerning childbearing were only asked of the ever-married sample. Most characteristics of early childbearing thus mimic those associated with early marriage. The unique aspect of this survey was the focus on the experience of the youngest cohort, aged 15-19. Few of the youngest women, aged 15 and 16, were pregnant or already mothers (five per cent of 15-year-olds and eight per cent of 16-year-olds). However, of those currently aged 20-24, 42 per cent were pregnant prior to the age of 20. Of those married before they were 20 years old, 85 per cent had four or less years of education.
The first pregnancy is rarely associated with antenatal care, the exception being the urban areas. It appears that the younger cohort is receiving less care for first births than the older ones did for their first births. Home births of a first-born are common among all young women, but more so among the younger mothers than the older ones. The younger mother was also more likely to have a traditional attendant and less likely to have a medical person at her first birth, when compared to the older mothers. Thus adolescent childbearing appears to be taking place in a more risky environment than just five years earlier.
Young married women and men are not likely to use contraception until later in marriage. As a result, first birth intervals are very short. Although the majority of both men and women plan to use contraception in the future, women tend to answer that they are undecided regarding the method of choice, while men most frequently mention the pill or injectables as the method to be used in the household.
Excerpted with permission from
Adolescents and Youth in Pakistan 2001-02: A Nationally Representative Survey
Population Council, House
No. 7, St 62, F-6/3, Islamabad
Tel: (051) 2277439
Email: info@pcpak.org. Website:
www.popcouncil.org
221pp. Price not listed
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