Closing the gap, from the bottom

EDITORIAL: Pakistan’s strongest annual improvement in gender parity in a decade would ordinarily be cause for satisfaction. The challenge, however, is knowing quite what to celebrate when the country still ranks third-last in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2026. Its overall gender parity score rose to 59. 5 percent in 2026, almost three percentage points higher than last year and 5. 2 percentage points above its 2006 score of 54. 3 percent. Progress should certainly be acknowledged. But when Pakistan remains the lowest-ranked of the 38 lower-middle-income economies and all seven South Asian countries covered by the report, improvement mostly illustrates how desperately far there remains to go. The economic numbers are particularly dismal. Pakistan ranks 144th in economic participation and opportunity, even after moving up three places. Labour-force participation stands at 81. 46 percent for men and just 28. 21 percent for women. Women account for only 6. 13 percent of legislators, senior officials and managers in the workforce, while just 3. 4 percent of firms have female top managers. These figures describe an economy that continues to leave an enormous share of its human capital underutilised, an extravagance Pakistan can scarcely afford, given its persistent struggle to generate investment, productivity and sustainable growth. Education offers the most encouraging part of the report and was the principal driver of this year’s improvement. Pakistan rose substantially in educational attainment and achieved high parity in tertiary enrolment, with female and male enrolment rates reported at 10. 71 and 11. 01 percent, respectively. Yet the broader picture remains deeply troubling. Female literacy stands at 48. 52 percent against 69. 14 percent for males, while participation at both primary and secondary levels remains low. Near-parity between boys and girls becomes considerably less impressive when too many children of both sexes remain outside or fall away from the education system. The political picture is hardly reassuring either. Women comprise 21. 69 percent of parliamentarians but only 3. 45 percent of those holding ministerial positions, according to the report. Pakistan ranks 107th in political empowerment. Beneath representation lies the more fundamental question of rights. The WEF report highlights unequal inheritance rights for widows and daughters, restricted access to justice, and unequal divorce rights. Gender disparity therefore follows women from the household and workplace into the legal, financial and political structures that determine their ability to exercise meaningful economic and social independence. This is where incremental improvement must be kept in perspective. Moving upwards from an exceptionally low base matters because every improvement in education, employment or representation affects real lives. But celebrating movement in the rankings without confronting the underlying scale of exclusion would be dangerously complacent. A country cannot seriously pursue higher productivity while most women remain outside the labour force, nor can educational gains deliver their full economic return if qualified women encounter barriers when they attempt to enter employment or advance into senior positions. The response consequently has to extend across education, employment, law and enforcement. Keeping girls in school, improving female literacy, creating safer workplaces and transport, expanding access to finance and ensuring that legal rights exist in practice as well as on paper are interconnected parts of the same challenge. Employers and government institutions must also examine why women remain so dramatically underrepresented in positions of authority. Pakistan has improved, and that deserves recognition. But third-last is a rather uncomfortable place from which to take a victory lap. Copyright Business Recorder, 2026

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