A lack of safe transportation prevents women in urban Pakistan from entering the labour market. A programme providing subsidised, women-only transport was able to tap into a large pool of female workers, improving mobility and economic empowerment.
Read more about this research on the International Growth Centre's website.
In this episode of VoxDevTalks, Tim Phillips speaks with Kate Vyborny (World Bank) about her research on how transport constraints affect women's ability and willingness to enter the labour market in Pakistan. The study, conducted in Lahore, explores how offering safe and subsidised transport options can activate a previously untapped labour pool: women who are not currently searching for work but might if barriers like harassment and lack of mobility were removed.
Understanding Pakistan’s low female labour participation rate
Women’s labour force participation in South Asia is significantly lower than in other developing regions.
“In Pakistan… we see that about one in four women is active and working.”
However, this number underrepresents the true potential of women’s workforce contribution. Vyborny adds that an additional one in four women express willingness to work if a suitable job were available. These women are considered ‘latent workers’—those not actively searching for employment due to perceived insurmountable barriers.
The role of urban safety and social norms
Although urban areas like Lahore may seem more progressive, women’s mobility remains constrained. Ironically, cities often intensify these constraints due to anonymity and increased risk of harassment.
“Cities tend to be quite anonymous and potentially dangerous. There's more risk of crime and harassment. So even though it's a big and fairly socially liberal setting, women's mobility is really constrained by safety and social norms.”
This paradox makes Lahore an ideal field site for interventions designed to tackle such challenges. It represents both the opportunity and difficulty of mobilising female labour in South Asian urban environments.
Building a job platform and finding latent job seekers
To connect job seekers with real employers, the research team built a job matching platform called Job Talash, translating to ‘job search’ in Urdu. It was initially conceived as a simple hotline but evolved into a comprehensive platform after researchers found that women lacked access to job information.
“We saw that women didn’t have access to information about jobs… so we ultimately ended up recruiting firms, asking them to post jobs with us, and then randomising which of the opportunities had transport.”
These were real, full-time, off-platform jobs, ranging from receptionist roles to HR managers and beauticians. The platform's success depended not only on employer participation but also reaching the right job seekers, particularly those not already in the job market.
Reaching hidden talent: Door-to-door outreach
Unlike traditional job services that attract those already seeking work, this study reached deeper. Field workers visited approximately 50,000 households across Lahore, registering adult men and women and offering them access to the platform.
“We found all these women that, if we had just gone to a job search service or placed an ad in the newspaper, we probably wouldn’t have found.”
This labour-intensive approach unearthed a large pool of latent female workers—those who, though neither working nor actively searching, were interested in the possibility of employment if safe and accessible.
Safe, subsidised transport is a game-changer
A central component of the intervention was providing a ‘pick and drop’ service: small vans, similar to those already used by large employers such as hospitals and universities, that collect and return female employees from home to work.
“Women are very keen on working for an employer that provides that, because that’s super convenient, it’s safe, you don’t get harassed.”
However, only 1-2% of firms offer such services due to costs. The study aimed to test whether such a service could be made viable and scalable, especially for smaller firms, through shared use and subsidies.
Transport offers boost job applications dramatically
To evaluate effectiveness, the study used a randomised controlled trial to test different scenarios: some job listings included transport, others did not; some offered women-only vehicles, others mixed-gender transport; some offered partial subsidies. The results were striking.
“An offer of transport, in particular, an offer of women-only transport, can not just increase, but double or triple the rate at which women apply for jobs.”
Women were two to three times more likely to apply when the job offered safe transport, highlighting the magnitude of mobility as a constraint on labour force participation.
Is subsidised transport sustainable?
While the research shows transport interventions are effective, cost remains a barrier to scalability. The service is only sustainable for high-earning roles, such as HR managers, but cost-prohibitive for low-wage roles like sweepers.
“You’d end up running a van for just one person, and it becomes cost prohibitive.”
One potential solution is temporary subsidies that allow firms to build a critical mass of female employees. Over time, this could reduce transport costs per worker. Another approach is clustering smaller employers together to share transport services.
Policy implications: Changing social norms
Vyborny stresses that while targeted transport helps, broader public investments are needed to ensure safe mobility for all women. She points to complementary research in Brazil, where the presence of female police officers on public streets helped reduce harassment.
“If you could make it safe for women in the public space, that has an economic benefit.”
Although concerns exist that segregated transport may reinforce harmful gender norms, Vyborny argues that such interventions are gateways, not endpoints.
“Having a safe, segregated space on transport can allow you to get to so many different possible places… to develop your potential, learn, and participate in so many other aspects of society.”
Conclusion: Safe mobility is economic empowerment
This research from Lahore provides compelling evidence that improving women’s ability to travel safely can significantly increase their engagement in the workforce. Safe, women-only transport not only increases job applications but also unlocks the potential of a hidden labour force that is eager to work.
“All of these constraints that make it difficult for women to move around in the public space have a huge economic cost.”
Tackling transport barriers—through both targeted subsidies and systemic public safety investments—can play a transformative role in women’s economic empowerment and the broader development of labour markets in South Asia and beyond.
This episode of VoxDevTalks is based on the working paper Field and Vyborny (2024).
"General Photos: Pakistan" by Asian Development Bank, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. No changes were made. Available here.