PAKISTAN is searching for sustainable ways to accelerate economic growth, increase exports, reduce poverty and create employment. We debate industrialization, taxation, investment and productivity—and rightly so. But one enormous economic resource remains substantially underutilized: Pakistan’s rural female workforce. The question is no longer whether Pakistani women can contribute to economic growth. They already do. The real question is why so much of their contribution remains invisible, informal, unpaid or confined to low-productivity activities. Labour Force Survey 2024–25 presents a sobering picture: female labour-force participation is only 24.4 per cent, compared with 69.8% for men. These figures should not be viewed merely as a gender issue. They represent a major economic opportunity cost.

An invisible workforce: Millions of rural Pakistani women work every day in agriculture, livestock, dairy production, poultry, harvesting, food processing, embroidery, stitching, handicrafts and household enterprises. Yet much of this work generates limited income because women remain disconnected from technology, finance, organized markets and modern value chains. A woman producing milk, raising poultry, processing food or making handicrafts may receive only a fraction of the final market value because she lacks packaging, transportation, quality certification, branding and direct access to consumers. The policy objective, therefore, should not simply be to move rural women from homes into conventional wage employment. It should be to increase the productivity and value of the work they are already doing.

From cottage industry to export industry: Pakistan’s rural women possess skills in embroidery, handloom products, garments,........

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