Informalisation of Women's Work: Consequence for Fertility and Child Schooling in Urban Pakistan

In: The Pakistan development review: PDR, Band 32, Heft 4II, S. 887-893

Abstract

Female employment is considered an important means of lowering
fertility through ways such as raising the age at marriage, through
influencing desired family size and also through better knowledge and
use of contraceptives. Increasing female labour force participation is
frequently recommended as a critical policy measure for reducing the
birth rate. However the significant inverse relationship between
employment and fertility found for developed countries is weak or absent
in the case of developing countries [Rodriguez and Cleland (1980)]. More
recent evidence indicates that it is not so much employment per se but
type of employment which is a critical determinant of reproductive
behaviour [United Nations (1985)]. It has been shown that while high
status professional jobs are associated with greater influence on
women's domestic autonomy and fertility, low paying jobs lead to an
increasing burden of work with entirely different implications for
fertility and other household related behaviour. In the context of
Pakistan, despite two decades of industrial growth and development,
official data sources show stagnant and low levels of female labour
force participation rates (LFPR) in urban Pakistan. The LFPR for urban
women ranged between 3 and 5 percent for the period between 1971 and
1988. Data collection methods of government agencies are known to
greatly underestimate female labour force participation (FLFP)
particularly in rural areas and in the urban informal sector where the
distinction between productive and domestic activities tends to be
ambivalent. Evidence from micro surveys indicates, on the contrary, an
increasing influx of women in the urban labour market, particularly in
the informal sector [Sathar and Kazi (1988); Shaheed and Mumtaz (1981);
Bilquees and Hamid (1989)]. A large number are shown to be working in
home-based piece-rate employment while domestic service mainly as
sweepers, washerwomen, maids,
etc.................................