Seminar no. 1323 (Special)
7 May 2025 Time: 11:30 – 12:30 hrs.
Speaker: Habibullah Niazi (IPSR Ph.D. Student)
This study investigates the relationship between women’s education and female labour force participation (FLFP) in Afghanistan, with particular emphasis on the moderating role of household structure. Despite the acknowledged importance of FLFP for economic development, Afghanistan continues to exhibit one of the lowest participation rates in Asia, shaped by persistent sociocultural, economic, and political barriers. Although international trends indicate improvements in women’s labour market engagement, Afghan women remain disproportionately underrepresented, with only 19.5% participating in the labour force compared to 80.2% of men. Existing literature has largely overlooked the influence of household characteristics such as size, composition, and the educational attainment of other household members on women’s labour market outcomes. This concept paper seeks to address this critical gap by establishing a framework for understanding how household structure conditions the relationship between educational attainment and labour force participation among Afghan women, thereby contributing to future research and policy formulation.
