WIEGO Statistical Brief No. 26
In recent years, home-based work has grown in Pakistan. This growth is due to an increase in the number of women doing home-based work, while the number of men in home-based work has declined.
From 2013/14 to 2017/18, the number of home-based workers increased from approximately 3.59 to 4.37 million, while the share of home-based workers in total employment remained constant at 7 per cent. The increase was due to the growth in the number of women in home-based work — from 2.67 million in 2013/14 to 3.59 million in 2017/18 and from 22 per cent to 28 per cent of women’s total employment. By contrast the number of men in home-based work declined from 925,000 to 786,000 and from slightly above to slightly below 2 per cent of men’s total employment.
This update of an earlier brief, Home-based Workers in Pakistan: Statistics and Trends, is based on the Labour Force Surveys (LFS) of 2013/14 and 2017/18, conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.