A Case Study of Pakistan Determinants of Female Labour Force in South Asia 1. Introduction Women make up half of the world’s population and, therefore, potentially half of the labour force. However, in countries worldwide, women’s share of the labour force is significantly less, almost 27% lower than men’s in 2019 (International Labour Organization, 2020, p. 4). Though there are substantial regional disparities, this inequality is massive in the Arab States and South Asia. Despite numerous efforts to reduce this gender gap, estimates for the Female Labour Force Participation Rate(FLFPR) in South Asia still show a declining trend from a mere 26% in 2010 to only 22.8% in 2023(International Labour Organization, 2020, p. 115). What could explain this deacceleration or, in fact, a setback? Firstly, most of the research has examined demographic and socio-economic factors. For instance, marital status, age, geographical location(rural or urban), wealth, household size, education levels in determining the women’s decision to participate in the labour market(Agüero& Marks, 2008; M. Faridi et al., 2009; Hafeez& Ahmed, 2002). Though there is not a significant variation in these factors in South Asian countries but the FLFPR within this region is highly heterogeneous(Chaudhary& Verick, 2014, p. 10), for instance, 22.6% in Pakistan to 85.3% in Nepal in 2019(The World Bank, n.d.-b). The substandard performance of women’s labour force participation(LFP) in Pakistan is one of the main reasons why the country ranks so low in the Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum(2020), ranking 151 out of 153 countries on gender parity. The subcategory of this index reveals suboptimal performance in all the categories(150th in economic participation and opportunity, 143rd in educational attainment, 149th in health and survival except political empowerment, which ranks the country relatively better at 93rd). Although such indices alone cannot draw any conclusions, Pakistan’s poor performance in closing the gender gap even when compared to other South Asian countries paints a bleak picture of the prevalent long-standing conditions. Not only does this make Pakistan an interesting case study in its own right, but it offers significant parallels with other countries struggling with a similar phenomenon. For instance, just as in the Pakistani case, conservative social attitudes toward women is one of the main reasons for the low FLFP observed in the Middle East and North Africa 1