Women empowerment, Economic and Social Wellbeing Survey in 36 districts of Punjab

Project Description

In the background of increased focus on addressing the gender issues and relevant goals in SDG's, GOPB developed Punjab growth strategy 2018. To achieve the desired development results, it was essential to identify the factors holding back women from economic opportunities, to establish the skill deficit that prevents optimal participation and returns for them, and have accessible and reliable data available, especially regarding the multitude of socio-economic and cultural factors that impact women throughout their lives. To obtain such data, Punjab Commission of Status of Women (PCSW) with technical support of BOS and other stakeholders designed a bunch of four surveys on Women's Economic and Social Wellbeing (WESW) in Punjab. These Includes:

1. Baseline Survey with 32,900 women.
2. Survey with 1,645 women with disabilities.
3. Survey with 2,488 women from minority groups.
4. Male perception survey.

Through an open tender, APEX was selected to carry out these surveys.

Services provided by APEX

The surveys with women, men, and disabled women were conducted in selected 1,645 clusters (1,133 from rural and 359 from urban areas) in Punjab. These clusters were selected by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) using population proportion to size method of selection. Using the provided maps, APEX conducted a listing exercise in these 1,645 clusters. APEX developed a web-based listing application using the CSPro package. Trained listers were provided tablets to conduct the listing. APEX prepared fresh lists of HHs to have at least one woman (15-64 years), men (15-64 years), and one disabled woman (15-64 years). Using the fresh listing information, 20 HH of women, four HH of male, and one HH of disabled women were selected systematically with a random start from each cluster. The survey with women from minority groups was to be conducted as per provided detail of 622 pockets/areas in Punjab, PCSW prepared two separate questionnaires - one for women respondents and other for male respondents. These questionnaires were translated by the APEX in the Urdu language. APEX develops two web-based applications using the CSPro package to administer questionnaires through tablet devices. For the understanding of field staff, we also developed questionnaire's manual including a question by question instructions and field guides both in English as well as in Urdu.

After survey preparation, APEX organized 18 days training of trainers (36) who were expected to further train the field staff. Similarly, for more than 400 field staff APEX organized training through different 12 sessions at three locations - Islamabad, Multan, and Lahore. The fieldwork was supervised and monitored by APEX's survey management and staff BOS and PCSW through a physical visit as well as via field check tables and a dashboard develop for these surveys. Data processing and analysis (weighted and unweighted) was carried out through Stata. The final reports of all surveys along with findings around agreed key indicators was also produced by APEX. The objective indicators of the study based on married women's maternal mortality, reproductive age, coverage of essential health services, mortality rate, and women harassment issues at workplaces.