Journals of Forman Christian College
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Lived Experiences of Work-life Balance in Women Academics during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Pakistan: Ambreen Salahuddin, Qaisar Khalid Mahmood and Iram Rubab
Full text linkLiving in lockdown proved a novel experience for the global population. This happened for the first time in recent human history due to the COVID-19 outbreak. As yet, less is known about how families have managed under social isolation. Working mothers, who typically worked for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, were burdened more and faced numerous challenges. Social distancing, coupled with online schooling, was a major challenge for these working mothers. This study documents the lived experiences of Pakistani working mothers, to explore issues of work-life balance during lockdown by using a phenomenological framework and the theoretical lens of "performative action” and the "second shift". The study results reveal that the persistent gender role compartmentalization appeared in its more complex form during COVID-19. The situation was further worsened due to the economic backlash families were confronting during the pandemic. Socially assigned roles of women as an ‘Ideal mother’ and ‘Ideal wife’ in the domestic sphere, and an ‘Ideal worker’ in the professional sphere created role conflict for women. The findings of this study will help to develop gender-responsive policies to address the implications of the pandemic
Gender Diversity, Innovation, and Economic Growth: A Multi-Country Analysis: Zafir Ullah Khan, Muhammad Zubair Khan, Amin Ullah Khan
Full text linkStudies show that gender diversity promotes creativity and innovative ideas. This paper highlights the link through which gender diversity affects the generation of innovative ideas. The paper modified the Jones (1995) R & D model by assuming that a team consisting of females would be able to generate more ideas and explicitly included gender diversity in the innovation function along with other factors. The paper used a robust check to identify the relevant estimation econometrics method and the results indicated that the Dynamic System Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) is suitable for estimating the impact of gender diversity on economic growth. To lend support to theoretical linkages, the paper employed the dynamic system Panel GMM to examine how gender diversity at the workforce impacts growth via its impact on the generation of innovative ideas using a sample of fifty-four countries for the period 1984-2017. The correlation analysis shows that gender diversity positively affects the economic growth performance of the panel countries. After considering the effect of gender diversity, the coefficient of patents granted improved, which confirms the hypothesis that gender diversity contributes to the growth process through its impact on the generation of innovative ideas. The results show that internet use, mobile usage, and trade liberalization work as channels of diffusion of innovation. The paper also finds gender diversity to be a proxy of informal institutions. Our findings suggest that gender diversity has a significantly positive impact on economic growth through the generation of novel ideas by a gender-diverse team at the workplace. The results have policy implications for policymakers and business managers
Do Energy Transition and International Tourism Mitigate Environmental Emissions? The Case of SCO Economies: Muhammad Sajid Ameen, Feroze Ali, and Muhammad Atiq-ur-Rehman
Full text linkThis study examines the role of energy transition and international tourism in alleviating environmental emissions in the case of selected Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries for 1992–2022. Ecological footprint has been taken as a proxy for environmental emissions. Along with energy transition and international tourism, GDP per capita is also incorporated as an independent variable to check the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. To find the cross-sectional dependency among selected economies, the cross-sectional dependence (CD) test was used. Due to geographical reasons, cross-country spillover special effects are possible among the eight SCO economies. After testing the unitroots of the variables, two empirical approaches have been used for the empirical findings: fixed effect regression with Driscoll-Kraay (DK) standard errors and the method of moment’s quintile regression (MMQR). The empirical results indicate that the EKC hypothesis is not valid in the case of the eight selected SCO countries. Though energy transition has reduced environmental emissions in the economies under consideration, the impact of international tourism on the population is statistically insignificant. We can conclude and propose for countries in this region to focus on renewable energy source
Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Coping Strategies and Quality of Life of Infertile Women in Lahore, Pakistan: Zarrin Atif and Dr. Afsheen Gul
Full text linkThough infertility is not considered a life-threatening condition, it is perceived as a crisis in a woman’s life, due to the societal and cultural norms of Pakistan. The diagnosis is accompanied by psychological issues which impact the quality of life in women. The current research investigates the impact of stress, anxiety, and depression on the quality of life of infertile women and to understand the coping strategies adopted by them. A correlational research design was used and a purposive sample of 108 infertile women was taken from health centers. The Urdu translations of The Fertility Quality of Life, The Perceived Stress Scale, The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and The Brief COPE Scales were used. Pearson Product Moment correlation was used to understand the relationship between variables and mediation analysis was conducted through PROCESS software. Results show that anxiety and stress were significantly correlated with quality of life and maladaptive coping. Anxiety and stress also played a mediating role in explaining the relationship between maladaptive coping and quality of life. There was no significant difference between the mean scores of women diagnosed with primary and secondary infertility, indicating that women are going through the same struggles regardless of the type of infertility diagnosis. It is recommended that mental health awareness, counseling support, and social support interventions should be provided to women experiencing infertility in Pakistan
Does corruption improve efficiency: Naveed Ahmad
No full textThis Study examines leff\u27s claim that corruption improves efficiency by avoiding cumbersome and lengthy government procedures in less developed countries. Using three different measures of corruption from the World Bank Survey, the study concludes that corruption does not improve government\u27s efficiency for the sample of 54 less developed countries after controlling other variables. Thus, government instead of selling their inefficient units should adopt meaningful policies to combat corruption
International trade investment and economic growth: Evidence From Pakistan: Khalil Ahmad
No full textThis paper has explored causality relationship between growth rate of GDP (as dependent variable) and growth rates of exports, imports, openness, domestic investment and labour (as explanatory variables) in alternative equations. Traditionally, much of the literature on economic growth has looked at the relationship between economic growth and growth rate of exports among other determinants of growth. Very few studies have tried to estimate the relationship between economic growth and growth rate of imports and/or of openness (i.e. exports plus imports). We developed a model relating the growth rate of GDP to the growth rates of openness (exports plus imports), domestic investment and population. Then we used annual time series data on GDP growth rate, and growth rate of imports, exports, openness, domestic investment and population. The data were first, tested for unit root using Phillips- Perron (1988) test and then the empirical relationship between GDP growth rate and growth rates of other variables was estimated using OLS with AR(1). The main finding of the study is that openness and imports do not matter for economic growth in Pakistan, whereas growth rate of exports, domestic investment and population do affect positively the growth rate of GDP
Some poverty issues in Pakistan: An Empirical Analysis
No full textA pragmatic approach for income enhancement was adopted in 1960s with a notion "take care of GNP and it will take care of poverty itself (Dr. Mahboob-ul-Haq) followed by its reversal in 1980s. Current policy is to combat poverty and revive economic growth. Emphasis of the first policy package was to boost farm output by investing in agriculture (a supplier of raw materials). The second policy package was to invest for it by shifting to value adding industries, notably textiles, to develop backward and forward linkages, increase income, employment and share in global trade. This was to continue for other commodities and tailoring output according to the economic principles to sustain increased welfare, which was not achieve
An Intra-Provincial Analysis of Expenditure Elasticities and Household Economies of Scale
Full text linkThis study revolves around the analysis of expenditure elasticities and thehousehold economies of scale in order to explore intra-provincial consumption patterns of Pakistan. The analysis is carried out for various food items using Household Integrated Economic Survey, which are usually consumed by the households. The included food stuffs are appeared as necessities of life. The commodities appeared to be more responsive towards any given change in income in rural areas as compared to urban areas. This fact is obvious because of the lesser purchasing power of the inhabitants of rural regions as compared to urban regions. On the other end, the consumers are having economies of scale towards the household size. This reveals the fact that bigger households or households with multiple members are able to achieve the same standard of living at lower per capita expenditures on goods than smaller households
Policy Framework for Inclusive Growth: A Case Study of Selected Asian Countries: Aribah Aslam and Kalsoom Zulfiqar
Full text linkThis study analyzed the long run and short run impacts of education, health, trade openness, inflation, GDP per capita and most importantly umbrella of institutions on inclusive growth in for less and middle developed Asian countries. The results from VECM provide evidences for inclusive growth in the long run but not for short run, as it itself is a long run phenomenon. Indicators like regulatory quality, political stability, law and order, control of corruption and trade openness are used to highlight the institutional role in achieving inclusive growth. On the other hand, the impact of GDP per capita and government effectiveness on health is significant in these countries. Empirical findings also indicate that Inflation and rule of law play a significant role in improving the health quality, which leads to inclusive growth. Study also forecasts the effect of shocks in independent variables to inclusive growth for policy measures. The long lasting impacts on inclusive growth are the result of education, GDP growth, umbrella of institutions and rule of law. The absence of such factors restricts developing countries away from reaping the benefits of inclusive growth. Therefore, it is suggested that major focus of public policy must be to improve institutional quality along other socioeconomic factors to improve the human welfare
Impact of Embodied Characteristics and Sensory Variables on the Price of Milk at Retail Level: Waseem Ahmad, Tanvir Ahmed and Ghulam Shabbir
Full text linkThe study is concerned with the valuation of various components of milk at retail level. To understand this relationship, cross sectional data at retail level are obtained and Hedonic model is applied to value different components of milk (fat, solid-not-fat, water, total plate count). The study further uses sensory variables (color, aroma, taste and freshness) to determine their impact on the price of milk. Results of the study show that fat and solid- not- fat contents have positive impact on price of milk, which means consumers pay premium price for milk having higher fat and solid- not- fat contents. Further the study shows that consumers pay premium price to milk having desirable color, aroma, taste and freshness