DETERMINANTS OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN PAKISTAN: EXPLORING NEW DIMENSIONS FROM PSLM (2013-14)

Women empowerment means the authority provided to women in order to challenge any situation. This study aims to identifying the determinants of women empowerment and decision making. The data was collected from Pakistan Social & Living Standard Measurement Survey (PSLM), the Federal Bureau of Statistics, and Government of Pakistan 2013-14 by using some proxies obtainable in the data set. Here the researchers used Logistic Regression model to examine the determinants of women empowerment. Secondary data was obtained from various books, articles, journals, officially published data, factual accounts, and research work of researchers. The actual sample contains data from PSLM (from the ninth round of surveys conducted till June 2015). The descriptive statistics show the determinants which affect women’s decision making in the fields of employment and education. These factors are marital status, level of education, age factor, employment status, wealth quintiles, regions, and provinces.


INTRODUCTION
A country's economy depends on various factors and upon the strategic contributions by the different communities and genders. Contributions by a country's population can only be vibrant once public is empowered. 'Empowerment' basically means supremacy or influence to carry out numerous maneuvers. An individual gets empowered if that authority as well as a prospect of progression is provided. Only in this case a person or a specific community can bring greater changes. So, women empowerment means the authority provided to women in order to challenge any situation. This access of women to assets and financial services can signify freedom, power, and influence and opportunity for women. It is witnessed and can be taken as a fact that getting the women of a country in a leading economical segment can never be a triumph. In fact, one of the foremost keys to economic growth is consideration of empowering the role of women. Not just this but directly or indirectly political stability and social transformation of a community is also deeply linked. Since Pakistan's independence, the society has been under male dominancy and women were rarely provided with chances of empowerment. If conservative perspectives regarding women contributions to a house income will change to broader insights, only then people will capitalize women education and health. (Ross, 2008). "We cannot all succeed if half of this is held back" (Malala Yousafzai) As education stimulates development of human resource, therefore the formation of social linkages for women and attaining a various position in society. This develops financial literacy and financing in income producing activities. Indications from different countries show that increasing the portion of household income managed by women, either earned by them, allowing them in the means that advantage children. Increasing women's education subsidizes to advanced economic growth. There are numerous socio-economic factors that limit the level of empowerment of women in Pakistan. This includes women's level of education, age, contact to media, level of their job, amount of religiosity, inheritance of land, property or dowry, alertness of rights and husband's cooperation etc. There is need to give more emphasis on women's Education, Age, Employment and their marital status. The Pakistanis keep the common discrimination against women and genders in all sectors (UNICEF, 2006). By examining the Pakistan social and living standard measurement (PSLM) with survey data of 2013 to 2014, there is a need to device research focused on the very basic reasons and factors influencing women empowerment. The leading objective of our study is to determine the factors contributing to the women empowerment like decision making about education, employment.

Research Question
The research question arisen based on the study agenda to discuss the circumstances and better understanding of the topic that what the factors are influencing the women empowerment?

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Women empowerment have been debated so far in many ways focusing on achieving the desired results. Generally, the variables explained in these studies are women age, marital status, household income, socio cultural variables, locality, good health, educational level, legal awareness, government policies and family dependence etc., and their correlation. Shetty, S., and Hans, V. (2015) carried out research on Role of Education in women Empowerment and Development. They analyzed that the education is an intention for women empowerment because it enables them to respond to the challenges. They highlighted the issue of women discrimination in India. They emphasis that education is the way to release the blonde access of freedom for development as education is both an input and output of human improvement, educational equity will ensure enabling and entrepreneurial development. Iqbal et al., (2015) discussed about Socio-Demographic, he links household rural women`s lifestyle in Sargodha a district province Punjab Pakistan. They randomly collected the data of 207 women of different Tehsils of Sargodha and studied the impact of these characteristics of household women on their quality of life. The data has collected in the form of interviews and analyzed data through SPSS with the conclusion that women`s age, educational level, good health, household income, marital status and religiosity are significantly related. Haque et al., (2011) discussed the obstacles which a Woman has to face while acquiring the empowerment. The study reveals that the real obstacles are in the indicators like; (family restrictions, socio religious restrictions and socio-economic conditions of women in Bangladesh). In the later part some recommendations are made to overcome the obstacles. So, it is established that if the women community has to become the human resource women must be trained, educated and must be aware of their vital position in the society. Jan, M., & Akhtar, S. (2008) have approved the examination of the decision-making power amongst married and unmarried women. Basic findings of their study is indicates that decision making processes are normally dependent on the level of knowledge. Women decision making power is associated to their fertility, children and their empowerment. Moore (2017) stated that females are not reflected as the vital overhauls but as a bearer who raises children and also as caretakers of the home, while remaining unemployed, incompetent and overworked, they also symbolize an industrious latent it is not organism spigot. Women form half population of a country cannot be realized if most of the people lag behind. He analyzed, how the economic, social and cultural development of the country realizes when half of its population (woman) is in such great dependency. Bushra and Wajiha (2013), made an attempt to cover 200 female defendants of two well-known colleges of Lahore. The empirical results of this study are to demonstrate the contents of education, economic participation of women, poverty and economic chance available to women in order to increase their empowerment. Yogendrarajah (2013) explained the concept of husband as the family head is not defined in anywhere. Their study is founded to examine the decision-making power of women at household level. Their study was based on the decision making, women empowerment and household level variables. Resources while conducted the study in (2003). And concluding how important women Empowerment is in terms of their social independence and economic activity. This study also states that agency and opportunity are the causes and the consequences of Empowerment. He labels the relationship between women empowerment and welfare as Empowerment plays an important role in household and social welfare. Ackerly (1995) has considered five dimensions of empowerment. She created an association between the indicators of empowerment which are gamily, education and Women's autonomy. Education is very vital factor boost the female labor strength participation. To captures the results of deferent education levels on female labor participation. The predictable association between education and female labor power participation is helpful. Koenig et al., (2003) empirically examine whether domestic violence has something to do with women empowerment in Bangladesh. This was a framework using different determinants of domestic violence and women empowerment was one of them. In this article the consequence of women's rank on hostility was found to be highly framework explicit. Women status was connected with significantly lower ricks of violence. Mason, K. O. (1996) studied on possible samples of urban households in Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, concerning women empowerment. The proportions taken by them are women's role in household expenditure and decision making. This resulted in that social background has direct and indirect effects on women's economic supremacy.

DATA AND METHODOLOGY
The data have been collected from (PSLM), the Federal Bureau of Statistics, and Government of Pakistan 2013-14 by using some proxies obtainable in the data set. Here we used Logistic Regression model to examine the determinants of women empowerment. The secondary sources in this study are comprised various books, articles, journals and officially published data, factual accounts, and research work of researchers. The actual sample contains data from PSLM (from the ninth round of surveys conducted till June 2015). The analysis of the study is carried out at decision making about education and employment. This study also suggests the recommendations to overcome the hurdles offered against the employment, education and her decision making in our society. This study has used 2 proxies of women empowerment: Women decision making about her education ii) Women decision making about her employment Empirical Equations of Model: Model 1: Description of Variables and Data: In level of education the statistics decrease as the level of education increased. Attaining no education are more stable in making the decision such as 38% for uneducated and the value decreases to 8% for higher education, the reason behind this can be the small number of women in Pakistan availing proper and according to the age group data of women decision making it can be clearly seen that women of ages under 25 have 30% of power for making a decision while 48% of decision making is shown by age group 26-35 years, however women above 36 years have only 22% of power which is comparatively less to others.

Determinants of Women Empowerment Determinants of education decision making
Many studies on women empowerment shows that when men have a superior part in decision making or family concern like household well-being improves the basis of empowerment, so we can say that marital status is an important factor along with education of women, age factor in determining the decision of women. When women are educated, they will be able to contribute in nation building. Education is a powerful tool for decision making, which positively improve the Women abilities in different sector. Our result shows that education has positive impact on Women qualities; the result of our study is similar with Quisumbing, and De La Brière. (2000). Marital status is one of the main determinants of education. The results show that if woman is married, she will contribute 0.122 percent less as compared to unmarried in decision of education. This variable is significant at 5% level of significance. According to Jan, M., & Akhtar, S. (2008), if the woman is married, she will contribute low in the society, but it is significantly related with decision making. The basic outcomes of their study are that decision making progressions are generally dependent on the level of knowledge. Women decision making power is connected to their fertility, children and their empowerment. Level of education has the greatest impact on decision making regarding education as women with only primary education have 0.026% more power in decision making as compared to uneducated women and it is insignificant. The primary education is more significant according to study, but higher education is also important for decision making (see, the study of Mason, 1996).
However, moving towards higher education women have the 0.220% more decision power as compared to uneducated women, which has 1% level of significant on decision making for education. Some authors have several visions in term of education like Malhotra and Mathar, (1997) used a quadratic term, whereas other comprises the dummies for each level of education. According to Acharya et al., (2010) the level of education plays a vital part in empowering women. It's also explained that if the woman is highly educated, it improves her decision-making ability. Women of ages 26-35 have a coefficient of 0.336 which is greater than the coefficient of age more than of 36 years and above that is 0.221. This shows that young women can make wiser decisions in the field of education because they are actively participating in academics during the age group 26-35. It accomplishes that education prospects or scholarships are providing to girls almost in 26-35 age and they can improve their education. According to employment of women usually working women care about their education so they have a coefficient of 0.458 and this is significant at 1%. The results show that employed women can take decision about her education more confidently as compared to unemployed. Another reason might be that they can easily afford financial expenses to their education. To further clarify the statement, it can be said that employed women are strong enough to make decision of education. Overall wealth quintiles have a quite similar impact on education decision making According to the region's women living in urban areas can make better decisions of their further education and its coefficient has 1% significance on this aspect as women in rural areas are not provided with facilities in educational prospects. In Pakistan, males are more dominant than women. In our study if we talk about provinces women in Punjab have greatest power which is 0.450 and this has 5% level of significance then second greatest is in Sindh which is 0.232 and both are significant at 1% significance level, but KPK has lowest coefficient of 0.125 and lowest level of significance because women in KPK are living in conservative system and cannot make decisions for education.

Determinants of employment decision making
In order to find the determinants of employment decision making we make an analysis by using important variables like marital status, education, age, region, employment, no. of children and provinces. Coefficients and Z values are given in table which represents the level of decision according to given explanatory variables. We take the lowest value from these variables as base category for comparison. There are different determinants which effect the employment decision made by women such as marital status, married women's coefficient is -0.145 which has 5% level of significance on employment decisions. The negative value shows that married women prefer their family life more than employment especially in developing countries like Pakistan. Married women are more concerned about their children's education and prefer to look after them which are difficult with job. Different studies like Kabeer (1997) have suggested the considered empowering as prospect of monitoring her money. According to this study result shows the negative impact on women decision. Education level also affects their decisions as women with only primary education have a coefficient of 0.009 which is not significant at all but as the education level increases the decision-making power gradually increases, women with higher education have a coefficient of 0.235 which is significant at 1%. Mehra, R. (1997) showed in his research, that the empowerment policies for women can provide them freedom over their wishes and decisions, some new empowerment policies should be made to make a woman individually independent. Women in recent times lack of proper employment, education and access to facilities which could become a difficulty in their daily lives thus his study clearly depicts the importance of women empowerment. Our Results show that highly educated women have 23 % more decision power as compared to uneducated women about employment. Women of ages 26-35 are wiser in making decisions for their jobs so they have 0.129 coefficient which has 1% of significance level whereas older women cannot continue to work thus have lower ratio and its significance level. It can be clearly seen that only women employed have 5 % significance with a coefficient of 0.310. As unemployed women are rarely trying to make practical decisions in their lives. The research of Faridi et al., (2009) supported our results. Amount of wealth also varies the decision-making power as 2 nd wealth quintile has the greatest significance level. However other quintiles are less and have lower significance. Number of children affects this aspect too as the lower no. of children will increase the significance of making decisions about employment so the coefficient is-0.009 and statistically significant at 1% level of significance. We can say that a woman with children take decision of employment 0.089 % lower than the women having no children. Women living in cities and urban regions can only attain jobs, so their coefficient is 0.120 which shows that urban women are 12% more confident in decision making as compared to rural women. In the early 1990's the rural women in these villages had very less opportunities other than micro credit. Their foremost chores included house jobs and a complete isolation from political and economic activities. Different provinces depict different rate of decision making, if we relate to previous notions.
Results show that Punjab has greatest value 0.323 and Sindh has 0.222 but both provinces have significance level of 5% whereas KPK has less value and significance as it provides the lowest job opportunities to women. Thus, employment similarly empowers a woman to interact with people or the society.

CONCLUSION AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Women empowerment is very important for the development of a particular society as it uplifts the quality and the number of human resources. Human rights and their importance cannot be addressed without mentioning women empowerment. Although there are large and emerging research works on women empowerment and its determinants. However, most of these studies have their main focus on insignificant data sets and on gender related issues. But we carried out a different study to get an end result. To see what factors, limit these viewpoints of the women empowerment, we conducted this empirical research. Our study uses those sources which are taken from PSLM survey (2013 to 2014) in Pakistan. PSLM provide us micro data at the grass root level in decision making of women and then their demographic features are examined with all independent variables. These also helped us for observing the millennium development goals. The main objective of our study is to find out the main determinants of women decision making in case of education, employment and children. This decision making is considered as women empowerment. In order to get this objective, we make a descriptive analysis and logistic regression analysis. Descriptive analysis show that married women had a greater level in decision making which is 87% as compared to the unmarried which is 12%. Attaining no education are more stable in making the decision regarding employment and education such as 38% for uneducated and the value decreases to 8% for higher education. Overall, there is not much difference in the employment rate of women as 50% of women are not employed while 49% are working. The group data of wealth quintiles depicts that the percentage (20%) is same for all 5 quintiles which has no impact on decision making. Having a look on different regions it can be analyzed that women in urban areas have a lesser amount of percentage of power which is 33% whereas women in rural regions have a higher percentage of 66%. Whereas the descriptive analysis of children decision shows that education also impact the childbearing decisions made by women as uneducated women are much more family oriented, so they have higher percentage which is 39% as compared to different levels of education which are lower. Age is a factor which has the most significant impact as women from 20-25 have lowers percentage (30%) but moving towards women of ages 26-35 years has greatest percentage. Coming towards wealth quintiles, it does not have any visible impact on the decision making as it does not matter how wealthy a woman is for making childbearing decisions. According to the data of employment status women who are not working have 60% of power as they are more involved in households and have no other occupations. The results indicate that education of women, age factor, and marital status are being important variables in determining the decision of women related to education. The results show that if woman is married, she will contribute 0.122 percent less as compared to unmarried in decision of education.
Level of education has the greatest impact on decision making regarding education as women with only primary education have 0.026% more power in decision making as compared to less educated women. According to employment of women only working women care about their education so they have a coefficient of 0.458 and this is significant at 1%. Women of ages 26-35 have a coefficient of 0.336 which is greater than the coefficient of age more than of 36 years and above that is 0.221. This shows that young women can make wiser decisions in the field of education because they are actively participating in academics during the age group 26-35.
There are different determinants which effect the employment decision made by women such as marital status, married women's coefficient is -0.145 which has 5% level of significance on employment decisions. Education level also affects their decisions as women with only primary education have a coefficient of 0.009 which is not significant at all but as the education level increases the decision-making power gradually increases. Women of ages 26-35 are wiser in making decisions for their jobs. No. of children affects this aspect too as the lower no. of children will increase the significance of making decisions about employment so the coefficient is-0.089 and statistically significant at 1% level of significance. Our study shows that Punjab has greatest value (0.323) and Sindh has 0.222 but both provinces have significance level of 5% whereas KPK has less value and significance as it provides the lowest job opportunities to women. Research concludes that there is a positive relationship between women empowerment and education. Results show that as education levels increase, women become more capable for taking decisions; hence empowerment is directly proportional to the level of quality education. It is suggested to launch organizations which can introduce project-based awareness scheme. It is a compulsion to aware people on the need of quality education. Women of these areas are not exposed to proper formal education employment and health sector due to various factors. The infrastructure for these areas should be enhanced. The prime focus must be on the underprivileged areas for example outskirts of KPK and Baluchistan. Hence in the light of above arguments, organizations and authorize should spot out neglected areas and plant projects that can assist women in the field of education and employment.