A Case Study of Pakistan Determinants of Female Labour Force in South Asia Figure 11: Government expenditure on education, total(% of GDP), 1985-2020 % of GDP 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Years 2010 2015 2020 Data source:(The World Bank, n.d.-c) Comparatively, countries like Afghanistan had 4.06% in 2017, whereas Bhutan and Nepal had 7.23% and 5.52% in social expenditure. Interestingly, Bangladesh’s expenditure on education has declined consistently from 2.13% to only 1.33% in 2019. The higher female participation rates in Bangladesh despite low government expenditure could imply that participation rates do not depend on government expenditure entirely and there are other factors to be considered. To conclude, it is significant that Pakistan can educate the surging youth population, especially the girls. Failure to do so would be a“disaster in the making” as the Washington Post called it and would inadvertently destabilize Pakistan’s already fragile society( Education in Pakistan , n.d.). This calls for increased investments in education and a change in attitudes towards women as well. Finally, having presented the overall background of labour market scenario and determinants of FLFP, the next chapter tests these factors empirically. The following chapter describes the model used to analyze the data. To reiterate, the idea is to gauge what impact does each level of education have on the LFP decision of a Pakistani woman while considering other socio-economic factors. 34