Hacked  By  r4dBlack

ISLAMABAD: Urban men in the country, in contrast to urban women, spend five times more on economic activities such as house maintenance, care for children, sick, and community services.

However, rural women spend more time on economic activities as compared to rural men. Urban men and women spend more time on socio-cultural activities compared to men and women of rural areas. These are the findings of a recently-concluded ‘Time Use Survey 2007’.

The survey is supported by the United Nations Development Programme and is the first-ever nationwide survey of its kind. This survey was conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Bureau of Statistics to report on how people spend their time. The recently-held launch was attended by government officials, development partners, researchers and civil society representatives.

Rana Assad Amin, National Project Director, UNDP Deputy Country Director, Mikiko Tanaka and Asif Bajwa, Additional Finance Secretary spoke on the occasion. They appreciated that through an exhaustive stock of household activities, the survey has generated wealth of data to provide empirical perspective for research on various social, economic and cultural issues. The information on unremunerated work has made it possible to quantify the relative contribution of men and women through unpaid work in formulating and implementing socio-economic development plans with a gender equality dimension.

These findings will facilitate policy making which will help to address the issues being faced by women by bringing them to the attention of the policy makers. The report reveals that 50 per cent women in Pakistan are unpaid family workers and only 13 per cent belong to white collar jobs, 69pc brown collar (service, agriculture and trade workers).

Rural women spend more time in economic activities compared to men. More than half (56pc) of employed respondents were in brown collar jobs. About one-fourth (24pc) of males are white collar workers compared to about one-eight (13pc) of females. The survey states that 50pc females compared to 14pc males are unpaid family workers.