A Case Study of Pakistan Determinants of Female Labour Force in South Asia the“appropriateness of the women’s profession” according to the male mindset is well described by Das& Desai(2003a). “Given the preoccupation with status-appropriate work for women, villagers themselves often rank castes by whether they allow women to work: only within their courtyards/home steads only at their own farms only within the courtyards/homesteads of others only at the farms of others in other activities within the village in other activities outside the village. Under this ranking scale, the more secluded the woman the higher her household’s status or prestige”(Das& Desai, 2003b, p. 4). Hence, to improve women´s status and actually make a positive difference in their quality of life, it is significant to engage them in activities valued by society. This implies jobs outside their homes and in the formal sector(Sathar & Kazi, 1990). The percentage is still low, even in urban areas where only one in three women work outside their homes(Siegmann& Majid, 2021). It is not enough to only focus on the expansion of employment opportunities per se. 4.4. Province-wise analysis of the FLFP situation in Pakistan After analyzing how the FLFP situation is overall in Pakistan, the section below explains how each province in Pakistan is diverse when it comes to FLFP rates, women’s education, their sector of work etc. In order to have a better understanding, the following analysis is done according to the overall household income level with the first quintile representing the poorest and the fifth the richest in terms of income. As the figure 6 below shows that Punjab has the highest FLFP levels at all levels of income and Balochistan has the lowest rates as compared to the other provinces. This could be due to several socio-economic reasons, for instance, better infrastructure, multiple work opportunities, a working environment that results in higher participation rates for women in Punjab province. 23