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Foodbank use in the UK is rising but, despite high levels of poverty, Pakistani women are less likely to use food banks than white British women. The purpose of this paper is to understand the lived experience of food in the context of poverty amongst Pakistani and white British women in Bradford, including perspectives on food aid.

A total of 16 Pakistani and white British women, recruited through community initiatives, participated in three focus groups (one interview was also held as a consequence of recruitment difficulties). Each group met for two hours aided by a moderator and professional interpreter. The transcripts were analysed thematically using a three-stage process.

Women in low-income households employed dual strategies to reconcile caring responsibilities and financial obligations: the first sought to make ends meet within household income; the second looked to outside sources of support. There was a reported near absence of food insecurity amongst Pakistani women which could be attributed to support from social/familial networks, resource management within the household, and cultural and religious frameworks. A minority of participants and no Pakistani respondents accessed charitable food aid. There were three reasons for the non-use of food aid: it was not required because of resource management strategies within the household and assistance from familial/social networks; it was avoided out of shame; and knowledge about its existence was poor.

This case study is the first examination of varying experiences of food insecurity amongst UK white British and Pakistani women. Whilst the sample size is small, it presents new evidence on perceptions of food insecurity amongst Pakistani households and on why households of varying ethnicities do not use food aid.

Under the unique context of COVID-19, this paper aims to analyze how the Government of Pakistan (GoP) provides financial and non-financial support to women entrepreneurs in Pakistan. Drawing on the resource-based theory of entrepreneurship (RBTE), the study advances the understanding of resources and grants offered by GoP to women entrepreneurs to help them in business survival.

The study adopts qualitative research method to address the questions: how does the Pakistani government respond to issues faced by women entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what assistance and initiatives were implemented by GoP? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty on-job government officials related to the entrepreneurial sector in Pakistan.

The paper reveals that during the pandemic, GoP keenly communicated with women entrepreneurial representatives to comprehend their business challenges. In addition, waivers and incentives were provided to support their business activities. GoP further invited women entrepreneurs to contribute their knowledge and give suggestions in policy making.

Lots of research have been conducted to identify the issues faced by women entrepreneurs during the pandemic. However, the specific strategies, policies, and support provided by the governments to address these issues have often been overlooked. This paper fills such gap with focus on the governing bodies and policymakers in Pakistan towards women entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 crisis.

This study aims to provide insights into gender diversity in Pakistani boardrooms, particularly for the dominant family business type, which is strongly guided by (non-financial) family-related objectives when making business decisions, such as the appointment of board members. Pakistani companies operate within the framework of weak legal institutions and a traditionally highly patriarchal environment. This study examines how corporate decisions regarding the appointment of female board members play out in this socio-political and cultural environment.

Board composition and board characteristics were examined using hand-collected data from 213 listed family firms and non-family firms on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2017. Univariate analyses, probit regressions and robustness tests were performed.

Pakistani family firms have a significantly higher proportion of women on their boards than do non-family firms. They are also significantly more likely to appoint women to top positions, such as CEO or chairs.

Evidently, women are allowed to enter boards through family affiliations. Gender quotas appear an ineffective instrument for breaking through the “glass ceiling” in this socio-cultural environment. Thus, gender parity must entail the comprehensive promotion of women and the enforcement of legal reforms for structural and cultural change.

The analysis focuses on a Muslim-majority emerging Asian market that has been scarcely researched, thus offering new perspectives and insights into board composition and corporate governance that go beyond the well-studied Western countries.

In this study, the authors determined the prevalence of contraceptive use among Pakistani women and assessed factors influencing the utilization of contraception with a particular focus on the experience of gender-based violence.

The dataset used in this study was the Pakistan Demographic Health Survey 2018, which includes married women only. Bivariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression were used to investigate the association between contraceptive use and a number of explanatory variables including experience of gender-based violence.

From 2006 to 2018, the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) and the use of modern contraceptive methods increased slowly. The findings of this study demonstrated that higher educational level and wealth index increased the likelihood of contraceptive uptake and the use of modern contraception. Media exposure to family planning and spousal communication were protective factors that encouraged women to use contraception, including modern contraception, to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Women who experienced gender-based violence (GBV) were more likely to use contraception than women who did not experience GBV.

The use of secondary data limited the variety of important variable that should be investigated including knowledge of women on SRH, the attitude of women toward SRH and family planning, the skills of a healthcare provider on counseling family planning, and other barrier variables such as transportation and willingness to pay for contraceptive methods. 10;The sensitivity of the topic is considered as another challenge when collecting data. Women might be hesitant to share about their GBV experience. The experience to GBV is also hard to define and depends on the feeling of each person, especially emotional violence.

This paper is one of the very few studies to examine the association between GBV and contraceptive use, and thus is valuable in opening up debate about the links between these two factors.

The purpose of this paper is an attempt to cover available literature on natural resource management, which reflects the involvement of Pakistan communities living in different regions for sustainable management in agriculture, forestry and livestock sectors differentiated by women. In addition, it was also highlighted about the lack of access to productive resources for rural women farmers. The conclusion was drawn and key recommendation were suggested.

It is authors real-life experiences or observations in a given field to support colleagues in a variety of ways including advising, establishing best practices and noting trends.

It was concluded that there are no opportunities such as training of most advanced launched technologies for the sake of better crop production, dairy and fisheries sector sustainable development, as well as the availability of microfinance to support the women farmers in Pakistan rural areas to make them self-dependent.

The opinions and key recommendations are genuine and useful, which should be adopted for the more bright future of women farmers, especially in Pakistan’s rural area.

This paper discusses the challenges that two doctoral researchers faced while researching religious minorities and women in a culturally sensitive society such as Pakistan. Their shared interest in sensitive topics related to gender and minorities in Pakistan led both researchers to collaborate in this study to provide a better understanding of issues in qualitative research in the same research context. They discuss the challenges of interviewing participants within the educational context. They also suggest some ways to overcome such challenges.

Based on Foucualt's writings on regimes of truth, discourse and systems of exclusion, the authors in this study analyze how patriarchal and faith-based regimes of truth constrain some discourses that affect participants’ willingness and insights to reflect on the issues freely.

While reflecting on their experiences in data collection, authors report that qualitative researchers struggle to access participants to investigate issues related to gender subjectivities and minority faiths in educational contexts in developing societies like Pakistan. Researchers face a variety of problems, from their own positionality to participants’ access to their responses. The reason for this is patriarchal and religious regimes and also their intersecting relations that restrict participants’ ability to reflect on their issues. Minorities in Pakistan are often prevented from expressing their views freely by blasphemy fears. The discourses of gender are also sensitive. Therefore, the study suggests that in societies such as Pakistan, where religion and gender are emotive terms, the problem can be handled by counter-discourses that challenge truth regimes by conceiving research as a transformative practice. Moreover, such societies require a policy for protecting researchers and participants in the interest of knowledge production and dissemination.

This study is originally based on the primary data used in two doctoral studies.

Driven to improve the quality of higher education as an engine of growth and socio-economic development within Pakistan for 20 years, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Pakistan has focused on linking academics and professional services staff with their counterparts in various countries, including the UK, US, and Australia. In collaboration with the British Council, the PAK-UK initiative has been launched to offer deeper linkages between the academics and universities in the UK and Pakistan. This paper presents statistical analysis of data collected in a British Council project highlighting the gender inequalities of the current HEC strategy. The results suggest the potential for online opportunities to help close and amend this gender gap and improve higher education in Pakistan, and the PAK-UK initiative's role in contributing more broadly to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The purpose of this study to identify the role of women in political agenda at Azad Jammu Kashmir. The political parties are always considered main gatekeepers to women’s political representation. Existing scholarship highlights the significance of centralized political institutions (parties) with structured set up for the effective representation of women at different levels. However, the functioning of these institutions is greatly influenced by the social and cultural context of a country in which they operate.

This paper mainly analyzes social and cultural practices and those informal ways that operate within the exited democratic government setup and creates serious obstacles for women’s effective political representation at the party level. For this purpose, a qualitative research methodology is used to get the full insight of the issue at hand. The authors conducted 25 in-depth interviews with women members of three different political parties.

The results revealed that both (social context and political structure) have a significant impact on women’s nature and level of participation in the political processes in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Prevailing social and political context of Pakistan does not support a truly democratic and centralized political system. Parties are weak entities with the less democratic organizational structure, which ultimately have a negative impact on women’s political representation.