In the latest civil service examination, widely regarded as the country’s toughest competitive test, where less than one per cent of candidates succeed, 86 women were recommended for appointment compared to 84 men. This marks a remarkable shift in a system that recruits Pakistan’s future administrators, police officers, diplomats, and senior public managers. In a country where women once had minimal representation in state institutions and were often excluded from leadership roles, they are now entering the civil service in greater numbers than men.

A similar transformation is visible in higher education. The ratio of women-to-men enrolled at the university level has now reached overall parity, and women outnumber men in several disciplines. According to the Gender Parity Index for tertiary education, female enrolment now exceeds that of males. This reflects substantial social and educational progress and highlights the growing role of women in Pakistan’s professional, academic, and public life.

At the political level, the picture is more complex, though women today play a far more significant role than is commonly portrayed. Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province and economic heartland, accounting for nearly 60pc of national GDP, is currently led by a female chief minister.

Although women remain underrepresented in federal and provincial cabinets, they constitute roughly 20–22pc of Parliament. By comparison, women account for around 15pc of parliamentarians in India, approximately 6pc in Japan, and about 17pc in Sri Lanka. Parliamentary observers also frequently note that committees chaired by women tend to function more effectively and actively than many others.

The country’s poor performance on global gender indices is as much a failure of measurement as a failure of policy

The corporate sector has also evolved gradually. The chairperson of the Pakistan Business Council, representing many of the country’s largest businesses and multinational corporations, is a leading businesswoman.

Women are increasingly visible on corporate boards, partly due to regulatory reforms but also because companies increasingly recognise the value of diversity in governance and decision-making. Their presence continues to expand across banking, telecommunications, technology, pharmaceuticals, and financial services.

Recognising the need to further close the gender gap, the federal government introduced targeted measures in the 2025–26 budget to identify and support gender-sensitive programmes. It specifically tagged 6.9pc of the Public Sector Development Programme, amounting to Rs291 billion, for gender-sensitive projects. Gender tagging has now been applied across more than 5,000 cost centres, covering key sectors such as education, health, governance, employment, safety, and political participation.

Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s ranking at the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025 appears difficult to reconcile. Yet such rankings shape global perceptions, investor sentiment, and international narratives.

Much of the distortion stems from methodologies that heavily weigh formal labour force participation and declared income levels, while failing to capture the economic contributions of millions of women working within the informal economy, agriculture, and household enterprises.

Part of the problem lies in Pakistan’s outdated statistical system. Key data sources, notably the National Time Use Survey, have not been updated for nearly two decades, and detailed wage inequality figures remain incomplete. This renders women’s unpaid care work and sector-specific gender disparities largely invisible to international assessors.

This weak data ecosystem does not excuse genuine gaps in legal protections or political representation at local levels. But it does mean that Pakistan’s poor performance on global gender indices is as much a failure of measurement as a failure of policy.

Countries with comparable informal economies but more frequent time use data have improved their rankings without dramatic shifts in on ground gender realities. Without a nationally representative Time Use Survey every three to five years, and without systematic capture of informal income, Pakistan will continue to be penalised for what it does not count rather than what it has achieved.

Additionally, Mishal Pakistan, the local country partner of the World Economic Forum, also bears responsibility for factual inaccuracies in the 2025 report. For example, the claim that women’s ministerial representation in Pakistan declined from 5.9pc in 2024 to 0pc in 2025 is incorrect. Since 2024, Pakistan has had three women in ministerial positions: one federal minister, elevated in March 2025, and two ministers of state. This significant error, which contributed to Pakistan’s sharp decline in the political empowerment pillar and consequently its overall ranking, reflects inadequate verification and attention to detail in compiling the Index.

Pakistan still has a long road ahead, but the economic prize is immense: According to the International Monetary Fund, closing the gender gap in labour participation could boost Pakistan’s GDP by a substantial 30pc, or roughly $80bn in additional output according to the World Bank, or more than the country’s earnings from exports and remittances combined.

The emerging wave of women’s leadership is not a hopeful side note; it is the most powerful tool we have to reshape institutions, businesses, and public life. The task now is not to hope, but to act: document progress, communicate it relentlessly, and build a future where talent, not gender, determines who leads.

The writer is currently serving as an international trade arbitrator and has served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the World Trade Organisation

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 1st, 2026