Social Policy for Women in Pakistan

This book analyzes the different policy challenges that Pakistani women face and makes regionally relevant policy recommendations across different areas of private and public life, drawing on secondary data from nationally representative surveys and primary data from qualitative interviews. These areas include family safety, housing adequacy, food security and nutritional adequacy, environment and disaster protection, educational development, employment and formal sector inclusion, and health security. The author examines how the history, culture, and political climate of Pakistan have shaped social policy for women, interrogates gaps in social protections for women, and analyzes the limitations for past interventions. This text also looks at collaboration across South Asian countries, as well as using religion, social media, financing, and a new model of governance for comprehensive coverage and sustainable social policy for women. 

This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and policymakers with focus on women’s and gender studies and policy studies in South Asia.

Sara Rizvi Jafree is currently an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology, Forman Christian College University (FCCU) and author of Women, Healthcare and Violence in Pakistan (OUP, 2018) Sociology of South Asian Women’s Health (Springer, 2020). She has published over 40 research papers on public health and social policy including (delete including please) in international journals. Dr. Jafree also serves as the Founding Editor of the Forman Journal of Social Sciences and as an Editorial Board Member for the Pakistan Journal of Women’s Studies, Alam-e-Niswan, the official Journal of Pakistan Association for Women’s Studies.