March 2001, Vol. 7, No. 1

Transition to Adulthood
Opportunities and Constraints for Adolescent
Girls and Boys in Pakistan

Nearly 30 million people in Pakistan are between the ages of 10 and 19 years: the largest group of adolescents in the country’s history. Transformations in social roles, expectations, activities, and responsibilities distinguish adolescence from childhood and adulthood; this formative period has lasting consequences for individuals, families, communities, and nations. Until recently, however, little was known about the circumstances of adolescents in Pakistan. To address this situation, Valerie Durrant—while she was a Population Council Berelson Fellow—culled data on adolescents from earlier surveys and studies done in Pakistan. Her published analysis of this material, “Adolescent girls and boys in Pakistan: Opportunities and constraints in the transition to adulthood,” provides the first comprehensive picture of the lives of young people in Pakistan.

“This publication is a watershed,” says Zeba A. Sathar, a Pakistan-based Council Program Associate. “It’s an authoritative piece on the demography of adolescence in Pakistan and it represents one of the most complete syntheses of information that we have on adolescents anywhere.”

Durrant relied mainly on data from two rounds of the Pakistan Integrated Household Survey: from 1991 and 1995–96. Although these surveys did not focus on adolescents, they proved a rich source from which to mine data about young people. Durrant compiled information on adolescents’ living arrangements, health, education, work, marriage, and childbearing.

“Many nongovernmental organizations are eager to create programs for adolescents, but no one really knows what they are doing, where to best reach them, or even what their needs are,” says Durrant. “This publication offers some answers.”

Adolescents doing “nothing”
Schooling, work, and marriage are perhaps the most significant activities in which adolescents engage. These activities represent socially recognized statuses and identities (e.g., “student,” “employee,” and “spouse”) that confer access to such social and economic rewards as education, money, and mobility.

One of Durrant’s major findings was that 45 percent of adolescent girls in Pakistan are not in school, not engaged in economically productive work, and not married, indicating a significant loss of human potential. By comparison, 13 percent of boys aged 10 to 19 years are similarly doing “nothing.” While Durrant used the term “nothing” as shorthand for the activities of those not in school, not working for pay, and not married, she notes that the majority of these adolescents are not literally doing “nothing.” Rather, they are failing to engage in activities that would advance their social position, opportunities, and connection to social institutions outside the household.

Durrant found that many of these adolescent girls are working in the parental home. (Data on the amount of housework that boys do is unavailable in the Pakistan Integrated Household Survey, but Durrant believes it to be minimal.) A critical question that researchers need to resolve is whether housework prevents girls from engaging in other activities or whether girls perform housework because there is nothing else they are allowed to undertake. Even after accounting for housework performed by adolescent girls, the activities engaged in by 10 percent or more of both adolescent boys and girls are unknown. Finding out what these young people are doing with their time is vital to planning positive and effective policies and programs for adolescents.

“This is a very vulnerable group,” states Durrant. “They are in the home, not linked to any social institutions. They are extremely hard to reach with information and programs.”

Gender disparity
Durrant’s research also highlighted large gender disparities between adolescent boys and girls in Pakistan. Adolescent girls, for example, are far more likely than boys to live in a household with neither parent, largely because of a change of residence associated with their marriage. While 4 percent of boys aged 15 to 19 live with neither parent, 22 percent of girls in that age group live with neither parent. Adolescent boys are also more likely than girls to seek treatment for their ailments, though girls are slightly more likely than boys to report illness or injury. And boys have greater access to health information.

Although the age at marriage in Pakistan is higher than it is in India and Bangladesh, adolescent marriage is common. More than half of the women currently in their 20s were married during adolescence, compared to one-fifth of men. One-third of adolescent girls in Pakistan become mothers before age 20.

Improvements in girls’ schooling in urban areas have helped reduce the gender gap in education among urban adolescents; however, huge gaps persist between boys’ and girls’ schooling and literacy throughout rural Pakistan. While parents generally favor education for both daughters and sons, the shortage of nearby schools and qualified teachers inhibits girls’ schooling. (Most parents would prefer that their children attend single-sex schools and, in public schools, girls are taught only by women. Teachers are frequently absent because of the limited mobility allowed for women in Pakistan.)

Rural–urban gap
As this finding on education illustrates, there are great disparities between adolescent girls who live in rural areas and those who live in cities.

“This signals a need to direct programs to rural adolescent girls,” asserts Durrant.

The rural–urban disparities do not stop at education. Rural adolescents work more than their urban counterparts, as indicated by both the percentage of adolescents who work and the number of hours worked. Urban adolescents, however, are more likely than rural young people to be paid for their work. Adolescent girls in rural areas, in poor households, and with illiterate mothers are more likely than other girls to be doing “nothing” and to become wives and mothers in their teens.

In addition to filling many gaps in knowledge, Durrant’s monograph has highlighted areas in which more information is badly needed. Using the publication as a guide, researchers in the Population Council’s Pakistan office are planning a survey of adolescents designed around issues central to this life stage rather than relying on information collected on adolescents as members of households, as was the case with the surveys that Durrant analyzed. Council researchers will use the new survey to investigate, among other things, the actual activities of adolescents who are now thought to be doing “nothing.”

“An important byproduct of doing this work is the knowledge that a lot can be learned about adolescents from existing data sets that were not compiled with this end in mind,” says Durrant. “Nevertheless, it would be extremely difficult to create policies and programs fully suited to the needs of adolescents without surveying adolescents themselves.”

Source
Durrant, Valerie L. 2000. “Adolescent girls and boys in Pakistan: Opportunities and constraints in the transition to adulthood,” Research Report no. 12. Islamabad, Pakistan: Population Council.

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