Daily Times

LAHORE: Female entrepreneurs belonging to small-scale industries in rural areas were six times more in number as compared to such entrepreneurs in urban areas of Punjab, whereas proportion of male proprietors in both areas was approximately same, Daily Times has surge learnt.

It is pertinent to mention that male proprietors were dominant as compared to female entrepreneurs, as their representation in industries remained at 95.78 percent while female entrepreneurs ran the remaining 4.213 percent industries across the province. Out of the total, 351 females were working in urban areas while 2,218 in rural areas.

This was revealed that in the Punjab Gender Parity Report (PGPR) 2016, and Gender Management Information System (MIS), which was jointly formed by the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) and the Urban Unit.

The report revealed that the proportion of female entrepreneurs in cottage and small-scale industry was very low with a GPI of 0.0265 and 0.0439 respectively. “By equalising men’s and women’s economic participation rates, we could add more than 10% to the size of the economy by 2030,” said PCSW Chairperson Fauzia Viqar.

Talking exclusively to Daily Times, she said the government should take measures with a focus on enhancing entrepreneurship opportunities for females, in line with Punjab Women Empowerment Package, 2012, and Punjab Women Empowerment Initiative, 2014, which was also recommended in the report. She further said that the government was also focusing on this industry to strengthen the role of women in the society, adding that the government would be successful in motivating women start their businesses.

According to report figures, 56.11 percent industries have been established in five cities only out of 36 districts of Punjab. As many as 5,362 industries were established in Faisalabad, 4,137 in Gujranwala, 2,736 in Lahore, 2,169 in Kasur and 2,070 in Multan, 1,941 in Muzafargarh, 1,714 in Layyah, 1,638 in Gujranwala and 1,202 in Sialkot, which makes one third of whole industries set up in rural areas.

On the other hand, it was an alarming situation for the government there was not even a single industry in 12 districts of Punjab that could be run by female entrepreneurs in urban areas. However, eight districts were pointed out in urban areas where just one female entrepreneur was running their own business in
each district.

The rural areas observed that female entrepreneurs of small-scale industries were running their own businesses in all 36 districts, which was a good sign, showing their interest towards this sector. Gujranwala and Layyah covered more than 50 percent industry set up with 665 and 649 industries respectively.

It was very interestingly, the rural areas industries of the only one district that came under the premises of Gujranwala region has more than the whole industries of urban areas of 36 districts that owned be female entrepreneurs.

According to the other features of the report, the economic participation and opportunity index of Pakistan was among the third lowest in the world. Labour force participation rates for Punjab revealed significant gender disparity in 2014-15. In the more productive age bracket of 30-40, the GPI for labour force participation rate in Punjab was 0.5309 in the rural areas and 0.2080 in the urban areas.

In Punjab, 34.5 percent women fall under the regularly employed bracket with fixed wage category while 50 percent as paid worker by piece rate, whereas for males the statistics are 45.7 percent and 25.5 percent respectively. Hence, female economic vulnerability was greater than that of males. There was stark gender disparity in public sector employment, as only 15 percent gazetted officials and four percent non-gazetted officials were females.

The report claimed that 46 percent of the female labour force receives remuneration that falls under the lowest wage bracket i.e. up to Rs 5,000, whereas only 7.7 percent of males receive compensation under the lowest wage bracket.