A Case Study of Pakistan Determinants of Female Labour Force in South Asia Beginning with the gender variable used in the model, the results highlight that women have a 33.4% lower probability of participating in the labour force than males as also pointed out in the literature(Andlib& Khan, 2018; Shaheen et al., 2011). The main variable of interest in this report is education, and the results are significant. Using no formal education as the reference category, the regression results reveal that individuals with a primary level of education have a 40.4% lesser chance of being in the labour force. In comparison, there is an 35% lesser chance for people with secondary levels of education. However, for people with tertiary levels of education, their probability of participation in the labour market is 5.4% higher as compared to individuals with no formal education at all. A better way to understand the gender effect would be through the coefficient of the interaction terms(the results are in Appendix-G) of females with the levels of education. The results highlight those women with primary education have a 2.4% lesser chance of being in the labour force than males with no formal level of education. Women with secondary education have only a small percentage of 0.05% higher probability than those males who do not have formal level of education. Females with tertiary education have a 10.9% higher probability than a male with no formal level of education. It can be said that the gap is larger at the initial years of education and narrows down with increasing years of education. The graph below gives us a picture of the economic participation by both men and women based on the levels of education. Figure 12: Labour Force Participation(%) by Education levels in Pakistan, 2017-18 Percentage 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 64.2 58.94 20 35.8 10 41.06 0 No formal edu Primary 63.51 36.49 Middle 62.54 37.46 Matric 59.97 40.03 Intermediate 59.51 40.49 Higher Levels of educa ti on male female Data source: Author’s own calculation based on the LFS 2017-18 results The results are consistent with the other findings who indicate a similar “U-shaped” relationship between education levels and LFP(Chatterjee et al., 2018; Khadim& Akram, 2013; Klasen& Pieters, 2012; Najeeb et al., 40