In Pakistan, there are a considerable number of unemployed female doctors, despite the urgent demand for qualified medical professionals in the world’s fifth most populous nation.
Startling statistics have unveiled that roughly 35% of female medical doctors in Pakistan currently lack employment, as revealed by a nationwide study conducted jointly by Gallup Pakistan and PRIDE, drawing its foundation from the 2020-21 Labour Force Survey and scrutinizing data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. This study specifically focuses on female medical graduates and aims to inform policymaking in the country.
Interestingly, this predicament unfolds in a country where the financially challenged government allocates substantial resources to subsidize medical education at public universities.
Pakistan is currently facing a severe shortage of qualified doctors, yet paradoxically, over 36,000 female doctors either find themselves jobless or choose to stay out of the workforce for various reasons.
Bilal Gilani, the executive director at Gallup Pakistan, highlights the seriousness of the situation, stating, “Pakistan is in dire need of trained medical professionals.”
The survey underscores that there are presently 104,974 female medical graduates in Pakistan. Private and government medical institutions actively employ 68,209 people, which is equivalent to 65% of them.
However, the nation also grapples with 15,619 unemployed female doctors, making up 14.9% of the total, and 21,146, constituting 20.1% of the total, who are completely outside the labor force, as per the survey.
Wasted Potential
The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) reports that since its establishment in 1947, Pakistan has produced approximately 200,000 doctors, with half of them being women. Alarmingly, data from the Bureau of Immigration reveals that around 30,000 doctors have emigrated from Pakistan since 1970, with nearly 1,000 leaving the country annually.
Gilani emphasizes a significant issue among female doctors. “Qualified female doctors are not actively practicing,” he observes.
A majority of these doctors have received their education at public sector universities, where the government subsidizes their education with billions of rupees. Notably, while private universities charge medical students more than Rs5 million, government institutions offer the same education for less than Rs1 million.
This taxpayer-funded investment appears to go to waste, given that one in three female doctors is not actively practicing, according to the survey. This results in an approximate waste of Rs200 billion in current value, given the investment in almost 50,000 female doctors.
Dr. Shahid Naeem, director of policy research at PRIDE, points out that one in every five medical graduates chooses to remain outside the labor force. Married females constitute the majority of “out of labor force” medical graduates, indicating a societal trend of pursuing medical education to secure advantageous marriages.
Dr. Naeem calls upon the government to reconsider its policy of seat allocation, particularly in public-sector medical colleges, to ensure a return on investment.
The survey findings align with the notion of ‘doctor brides,’ a prevalent phenomenon in Pakistan, where families encourage their daughters to pursue medical education to enhance their marriage prospects.
Rural vs. Urban Medical Graduate Employment in Pakistan
The survey also provides a regional breakdown of employment patterns among these doctors, revealing that approximately 28% and 72% of Pakistan’s total medical graduates reside in rural and urban areas, respectively.
In rural regions of Pakistan, employment engages over half of the medical graduates, and they choose to remain outside the labor force in a lower proportion compared to the national average.
In urban centers, around 70% of medical graduates are employed, with a limited percentage unemployed. However, the proportion of those choosing to remain outside the labor force is notably higher in urban areas.
When examining the 21,146 female medical graduates who opt out of the labor force, data indicates that a significant majority, 76.6%, are in urban areas, with only 23.4% in rural regions. Notably, around 76% of these graduates who opt out of the labor force are married.
The survey’s age breakdown indicates that the majority of female medical graduates fall within the 25-34 age group.
In conclusion, the survey underscores the necessity for targeted policy measures to enhance employment opportunities for female medical graduates, particularly in rural areas where unemployment rates are elevated. This research encompasses female medical graduates with MBBS, BDS, MS/MSc, MPhil, or PhD degrees in any medical field and is based on data collected from nearly 99,900 households across Pakistan, providing district-level representative results for the first time.
