LAHORE: A group of young women sit around a table filling out forms. It is a tiny office, with only a little furniture. The walls are mostly bare except one huge poster catches the eye. It is of some of the strongest female role models from Pakistan – Asma Jahangir, Benazir Bhutto, Muniba Mazari, Shireen Obaid-Chinoy – women who continue to inspire other women.

It is apt too, since this the place where women have been coming since a couple of months to learn how to apply for jobs, and to meet mentors who can help them in any way possible.

A project of the Punjab Commission for Status of Women, ‘Job Asaan’ – only three months old - has just recently begun advertising in the newsmedia.

“We are aiming for more and more women that can provides them with career counseling, and connect them to companies,” says Anum Tariq the project manager. “We aim at the professional development to get our message, which is that we are endeavouring to set up a facility of women who are looking to work but are currently not working.”

Services provided by Job Asaan include CV making, workshops on learning basic skills such as MS Word or Excel, referrals, co-working spaces, and training on interview skills. According to Fauzia Viqar, the chairperson of PCSW whose brainchild the project was, during the first year the budget is R25million. “eventuallly though we will come down to Rs16milion during subsequent years,” she says.

Viqar’s project basically aims at increasing labour particpation.

Anum Tariq expands a little more on the objectives.

“We wanted to target the less priviliged college graduates and inject confidence into them. It seems a bit unfair that such women spend their whole lives studying, but they don’t find jobs once they step out into the practical world. Or else there is a huge gender pay gap they have to deal with it.”

The women who are being encouraged to apply are intermediete graduates and not lower, while the entire process is free of cost for all beneficiaries. Although the pool is very refined, the task is not easy, because along with trying to slot potential employees with different companies, the project is also trying to make sense of the socioeconomic situation.

Therefore researching on the indicators and factors working behind the scenes, are a both a local organization and a foreign affiliate. CERP (Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan) that works on policy debate is also working in collaboration with Duke University and researcher Kate Vyborny says that a lot of stats have already been uncovered which point to the need of women getting out of the house for more work.

“Overall in Punjab, approximately one in 4 women are working; but another one in 4 are not working and at the same time would like to work if they find a suitable job,” she says quoting data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey. In Punjab, women outnumber men two to one at the graduate and undergraduate level (according to Punjab Development Statistics 2016) - but only 15 percent of women under 30 who have an Intermediate or higher degree are actually working reveals the Pakistan Labor Force Survey (2008-11).

“The process seems to be picking up, and signing up is ongoing,” she says. “So far about 450 women have started the signup process with Job Asaan; over 300 women have completed the signup and are now receiving services such as personalized job matching based on their interests and skills, career counseling, and mentoring.” Vyborny says that one of the popular interests among the applicants are mentoring and receiving training.

“About 70 percent have indicated interest in mentorship, and 65 percent in a skills training program,” she says. “Mentors themselves are often sought for a lot of help by these applicants.”

Each session with a mentor is a private session, where questions are asked and the mentor who is meant to have some solid experience in the industry is to give advice. One of the women asks how she is meant to work with children.

“One mentee even asked for advice on managing anger and conflict at work,” says Vyborny. “So the mentor shared her personal experience of frustration working in a call center and coached her with some tips.”

Of the beneficiaries so far, 14 percent have completed Intermediete, 56percent have completed Bachelor’s, and the rest have post-graduate degrees.

They come from a range of public and private colleges and universities and various backgrounds.

Dr Erica Field – also a researcher for Duke University who is working on this project – has done extensive research into similar issues in India and Bangladesh as well. For Dr Field, the restrictions on women entering the professional field are similar in these south asian countries.

“We always found there were high levels of female education, but not enough women entering the labour force,” she says. “Women in the rural areas were being discouraged more because of cultural issues, while in the urban areas because of a safety issue. In any case the male to female ratio is a bad equilibrium. Part of this is not having role models to take inspiration from, or who can act as a safety net.”

Dr Field says that it may be impossible to seek mentoring in many cases from the working women in the family, because many young women hae begun taking on occupations with traditionally male roles.

“Social networks within the professional field are very engendered especially in South Asian countries,” she says. Sometimes though this gender component instead of causing rifts also helps in communication.

As partners in research part of the Duke University and CERP’s role is to see which services may be needed most, or where to scale the budget up. Some analytical results may appear in the medium to long term.

“At the moment we do not have any success stories because the process has only just begun,” says Zamara Amjad, training manager. “But we are really hopeful about this project. It is a much needed initiative that the Government must continue working on.”

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2018