Comments on "Female Participation in Housing Activities: Some Assessment of the Socio-economic and Cultural Impact.

Critical comments are provided on a study of Pakistani womens participation in housing activities from a financial physical and decision-making viewpoint. It is highlighted that the multivariate analysis focused only on financial and physical participation. The statistical analysis is considered flawed because factors such as age and the relationship of the woman to the head of the household were not included. As a consequence there is no distinction between an elderly mother-in-laws or a young unmarried girls contribution to housing participation. Another criticism is the use of a dummy variable for employment rather than specification of type of employment. Prior research suggests that type of employment is the critical determinant of womens participation. A womans control over decision making is expected to differ in households where women are engaged in agricultural production rather than in the market economy. Those women working in the informal economy are different from women working in the formal sector. Literacy as a dummy variable obscures the effects of levels of educational status. The analysis also lacks a firm explanation for why Baluchistan is positive and significant in explaining womens financial participation in housing. Balochi women tend to have low status in terms of employment and education. The expectation is that household income and number of adult women would be negatively related to physical participation in housing rather than insignificantly related. Another shortcoming is the lack of attention to the extent of womens involvement in housing activities and a description of the socioeconomic characteristics of respondents. The most important omission is the failure to focus on womens involvement in decision making and the identification of factors that influence womens participation in decision making.