Ten facts from the Pakistan Labour Force Survey

This Labour Day a spotlight on labour force participation of individuals with disabilities in Pakistan, sourced from work by Dr Umer Khalid and Mr Saad Umer. The authors are respectively, Team Lead: Policy and Research Unit, Benazir Income Support Programme, Islamabad and Research Assistant, Policy Research Innovation Development and Education, Islamabad. The facts are based on their own work and do not necessarily reflect those of their institutions. 

1. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasises promoting full and equal participation of all vulnerable and marginalised population segments, including persons with disabilities (PWDs). Disability, in all of its forms is a cross cutting theme that runs through most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Goal 8 emphasises achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including persons with disabilities.
2. Disability prevalence ranges from 11.8 percent in high-income nations to 18 percent in low-income countries, with this figure referring to adults who have severe functional challenges in their daily life. The available evidence indicates that the differently abled are less likely to be in the labour force compared to non-disabled people, both in developed and developing countries.
3. The latest round of Pakistan Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2020-21 for the first time introduces a separate module on disability. It categorises individuals with disabilities into a broader (functional limitations) and narrower (severe disability) definition of disability in line with the international standards for measurement of disability.
4. The LFS 2020-21 finds there were a total of 3.85 million individuals aged 10 years and above who suffered from “severe” forms of disability, while around 13.8 million had “functional limitation”. This translates into a severe disability rate of 2.41% and a functional limitation rate of 8.68% of the working age population.
5. The labour force participation of the two types of differently abled persons ( 21.7% and 32.3%) identified in the data is seen to be substantially lower than that of their non-disabled counterparts (46.1%) in line with findings from across other developed and developing countries which indicate that PWDs have a lower likelihood of being engaged in economic activities compared to their non-disabled counterparts.
6. A substantially lower share of economically inactive PWDs are enrolled in education.
7. The unemployment rate for the severely disabled (14.5%) is more than double the rate for the moderately disabled (6.7%) and non-disabled (6.3%).
8. A higher share of the severely disabled and those with functional limitations is engaged in informal sector employment in comparison to persons without disabilities (74.8% and 78.2% vs 72.2%).
9. The highest share of severely disabled report difficulty in walking/climbing (52.6%) as compared to other disabilities. On the other hand, lowest share of severely disabled indicate visual impairment (15.9%).
10. The distribution of the two categories of employed PWDs by occupation group reveals that the highest share of both the severely disabled and those with functional limitations is working as skilled agricultural workers (33.1%, 46.1%), respectively. This is followed by the highest share of persons with severe disabilities working as service and sales workers (19.2%) and craft and related trade workers (15.5%). In case of employment for those with functional limitations, the second highest share is seen to be working as service sales workers (15.4%) followed by another 12.6% involved in elementary occupations.