Socioeconomic Inequality and Gendered Exclusion: A Cross-Sectional Study Conducted in Mardan

Abstract

Social exclusion is a process to exclude women fully or partially from social, economic, political and cultural dimensions in a particular society. In the present research study researchers focused to investigate the economic factor’s role in social exclusion of Pakhtun women in Mardan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and to find out the various dimensions of social exclusion. The dependent variable Social Exclusion is measured from exclusion and lack of economic opportunities, exclusion and lack of education and health services to women in the study area while the independent variables are mainly categorized in economic factors. The present research is conducted in District Mardan. The researcher selected six union councils from three tehsils in the district. The researcher used quantitative research design and simple random sampling technique is applied in selection of the respondents. Only women are included in the present research study. The researcher selected 300 samples of women and equally divided into all the six selected union councils in the study area. The researcher used interview schedule for illiterate and questionnaire for literate respondents. The results are presented in descriptive analysis and estimation results i.e. Correlation analysis & Regression analysis. The major findings shows that majority 55 percent have are illiterate or less than primary education in the area, 40 percent women are housewife among educated women. The correlation between women equal wage to men and women employment is 33% and the relation is highly significant at 0.01.  Overall, the strong significant correlation is found between the social exclusion and socio-economic factors in the study area. The policy recommendation of the present research included that the government should make a gendered socio-economic framework to cover equality in access and utilization of resources i.e. economic, health and education aimed at reducing social exclusion. Another important recommendation of study is mentioned that the government and other concern authorities should review the social protection system and policies from a gender equality perspective to provide social inclusion opportunities to women.