Women’s participation in the Central Superior Services of Pakistan 1973–2020

ABSTRACT

Decentralization and efforts for inclusivity in Pakistan’s public sector from 1973 led to the recruitment and advancement of women as officers of the newly constituted Central Superior Services (CSS) of the federal government of Pakistan. Quotas for women made government more diverse and representative, and educational and length of service benchmarks for recruitment and promotion made advancement more attainable and transparent. The increasing participation of these new officers of state, outlined in this paper, can be seen as an outcome of the 1973 public sector reforms, but government policy alone is not sufficient to account for women’s entry into public life and policy making where they had been excluded from it over the previous century of the development of the bureaucracy. This paper presents professional life history narratives of 23 women officers of the CSS recorded in an oral history project in Lahore and describes the women who participated in this state project of decentralization and gender inclusivity and their motivations, complementing an historiography of administrative reform. I argue for attention to the role of families and academic institutions in enabling women in finding pathways into the CSS and advancing and succeeding in their roles, mediating between the state and Pakistani society.

KEYWORDS:

• Pakistan
• oral history
• public sector
• bureaucracy
• women

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 July 30, 2020 (LUMS-IRB/07302020SMA).

2 Interview SH 008 in the Women in Public Service in Pakistan Collection housed at the Birgit Rausing Library, LUMS University, Lahore Pakistan (hereafter WPSP). In subsequent in-text references to interviews in this collection, WPSP is followed by the interview alpha-numeric locator number which is followed by the transcript page number.

3 This sort of assignment outside of the area of an officer’s primary service is the norm. CSS officers who achieve grade 22 will be assigned in order of priority to whichever federal secretariat position becomes available.

4 http://www.na.gov.pk/uploads/documents/1502192618_626.pdf (Accessed July 7 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sana Haroon

Sana Haroon is Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies at UMass Boston and co-director of the Women in Public Service in Pakistan Oral History Archive. She works on social organization and authority under the administrative and legal regimes of colonial South Asia and postcolonial Pakistan and on historical methodologies for the study of Muslim South Asia.