According to a nationwide study conducted by Gallup Pakistan and PRIDE, up to 35% of female doctors in Pakistan are unemployed. Based on the Labour Force Survey, the study examined data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics regarding the employment market, with a particular focus on women who have completed their medical degrees.
In Pakistan, 99,900 households participated in this survey, which yielded district-level representative results for the first time.
There is a severe scarcity of qualified medical professionals in the nation; over 36,000 female doctors choose to stay out of the workforce for a variety of reasons or are unemployed.
According to the survey, 104,974 female medical graduates currently call Pakistan home. Of them, 68,209, or 65%, are employed by different state- and privately-owned healthcare facilities.
However, the survey reveals that 21,146 women doctors, or 20.1 percent of the total, are not employed, and 15,619 women doctors, or 14.9 percent, do not have a job.
Pakistan has produced approximately 200,000 doctors since its founding in 1947, with half of them being women, according to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.
Approximately 30,000 doctors have left Pakistan since 1970, according to data from the Bureau of Emigration, and approximately 1,000 of them will relocate overseas on average each year.
The majority of these doctors received government funding for their education at public universities.
In an era where medical students pay over Rs5 million on average for their education at a private university, the government provides the same education for less than Rs1 million. According to the survey, one in three of these women doctors are unemployed, meaning that taxpayer dollars are wasted.
According to the report, nearly 50,000 women doctors—for whom an estimated Rs200 billion is spent—are squandered.
According to Dr. Shahid Naeem, PRIDE’s representative, married women make up the bulk of those who are “out of the labor force” as medical graduates. The survey’s results corroborate the “doctor bride” phenomenon that has been extensively discussed and reported in Pakistani media, and they indicate that many families would rather their women have a medical degree because it makes it easier for them to find a more compatible partner.
According to the survey, between 28 and 72 percent of medical graduates live in rural and urban areas, respectively.
More than half of Pakistan’s medical graduates—52 percent—are employed in rural areas, while 31 percent are unemployed. Compared to the national average of 20%, the percentage of medical graduates who would prefer to stay out of the workforce in rural areas is lower, at 17%.
According to data from urban centers, less than 9% of graduates are unemployed and roughly 70% of graduates are employed. More than twenty-one percent of medical graduates in Pakistan’s urban areas opt not to enter the workforce.
According to a comparison by region, there are substantially more job opportunities for women graduates in urban areas (78%) than in rural areas (22%).
In contrast, the survey shows that the percentage of unemployed people is substantially higher in rural areas—57 percent—than in cities—43 percent.
When looking at the breakdown by region, the percentage of 21,146 women medical graduates who chose not to enter the workforce is significantly higher in cities (76.6%) than it is in rural areas (23.4%).
Approximately 76% of medical graduates who chose not to enter the workforce were married. Ages 25 to 34 account for the largest percentage of female medical graduates (54 percent).
As per the survey, “the examination of the data highlights the significance of focused policy initiatives to enhance career prospects for medical graduates, particularly in rural regions with elevated jobless rates.”
Those who had passed the MBBS, BDS, MS/M.Sc., M.Phil., or PhD degrees in any branch of medicine are among the women medical graduates surveyed.
