Childcare Burden Slashes Pakistani Women’s Earnings by Almost Half, Study Says

An ADB–University College Dublin study finds that Pakistani women who care for children earn 44–48% less than those without caregiving duties, with each additional child cutting wages by 12%. The penalty is steepest for low-income and rural mothers, revealing that childcare responsibilities deepen gender inequality and limit women’s economic participation.

A collaboration between the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and University College Dublin has revealed the staggering economic cost of caregiving for women in Pakistan. In their 2025 working paper “Does Childcare Cost Women More? A Study of the Gender Income Gap in Pakistan,” researchers Yishan Shi and Kiyoshi Taniguchi use national data from the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2019–2020 to quantify how motherhood affects women’s earnings. Their results are sobering: women who care for children earn 44% to 48% less than non-caregivers, and every additional child reduces wages by about 12%. The penalty is steepest for low-income and rural mothers, reflecting both cultural and structural barriers that reinforce gender inequality in the labor market.

The Gendered Economics of Care

The paper positions Pakistan’s caregiving gap within a global pattern known as the “motherhood penalty.” While women everywhere experience reduced earnings after childbirth, Pakistani women suffer a far greater economic setback due to entrenched gender norms. Traditional roles assign women the primary responsibility for child-rearing, household chores, and elder care, leaving them little time or flexibility for paid employment. The study finds that caregiving sharply limits women’s labor force participation and keeps them trapped in low-wage or informal work. In contrast, men’s employment and income remain unaffected, or even improve slightly, after becoming fathers, creating what researchers call a “fatherhood premium.”

Numbers That Tell the Story

The PSLM data reveal striking disparities. Childfree women earn an average of PRs10,985 per month, compared with only PRs5,903 for female caregivers. Meanwhile, male caregivers earn PRs19,150, slightly higher than the PRs18,129 earned by childfree men. Employment patterns mirror these gaps: 53% of childfree women are employed versus just 38% of caregivers, while men’s employment stays constant at 77% regardless of caregiving status. Female caregivers are also twice as likely to engage in unpaid domestic labor. The report’s charts (pages 9–12) vividly show how women’s incomes drop with each child, while men’s remain stable. Among women with six or more children, average income falls below PRs10,000 per month, illustrating how caregiving directly erodes economic independence.

Urban Advantage, Rural Penalty

Geography magnifies the inequality. Urban women enjoy better access to education and formal jobs, yet caregiving still costs them nearly half their potential wages. In rural areas, where childcare services are scarce and labor markets are dominated by agriculture and informal work, the penalties are crushing. Rural caregivers earn an average of PRS5,805 a month, barely enough to sustain a family. Regression analysis confirms that while urban residence slightly softens the blow, it does not remove it. The presence of young children (ages 0–6) is particularly costly: mothers in this group face the largest wage losses, while those with older children see little difference.

A deeper look through Recentered Influence Function (RIF) regression shows that caregiving penalties are uneven across income levels. At the 10th income percentile, caregivers earn 67%–73% less than non-caregivers, but even at the 90th percentile, they still earn 21%–28% less. Rural women experience the harshest effects across the spectrum, suggesting that structural inequalities in rural labor markets intensify the cost of motherhood.

Discrimination or Structure? What Drives the Gap

Using RIF–Oaxaca decomposition, the authors dissect the rural–urban caregiver wage gap into two components: differences in characteristics (education, occupation, household size) and differences in returns to those characteristics. They find that at mid-income levels, most of the gap can be explained by lower education and job quality among rural women. However, at the bottom of the income ladder, as much as 76% of the wage difference remains unexplained, pointing to structural discrimination and deeply embedded labor market barriers. Rural caregivers, therefore, face a “double disadvantage”: they have fewer productive assets and receive lower rewards for them.

The study also considers selection effects. In rural areas, where baseline wages are already low, the opportunity cost of caregiving is smaller, meaning more women exit the labor force entirely. In urban settings, women who continue working after childbirth tend to be more educated and motivated, leading to a smaller, but not negligible, measured penalty.

Policy Imperatives: Making Care Count

Shi and Taniguchi’s findings portray caregiving as an invisible tax on women’s labor and a structural drag on Pakistan’s growth. They urge policymakers to treat childcare as a public economic priority rather than a private burden. Expanding affordable childcare centers, enforcing paid maternity leave, and creating family-friendly workplace policies could narrow the wage gap. Rural women, in particular, need greater access to education, formal employment, and community-based childcare. Without such reforms, caregiving will continue to deprive Pakistan of female talent and deepen economic inequality.

The ADB–University College Dublin study ultimately reframes motherhood as both a social and economic issue. Caregiving is essential labor that sustains families and communities, yet it remains undervalued and unrewarded. Until Pakistan recognizes, redistributes, and supports this work, gender equality in its workforce will remain out of reach, and women will continue to pay the highest price for care.