Gender Quota and Women’s Descriptive Representation in Pakistan: Challenges and New Choices

Abstract

The women’s under-representation in the politics is a historic and global phenomenon. The past two decades have witnessed increase in women’s representation across the globe. These advancements were a result of fast track strategies adopted by states called gender quota. Pakistan also provides quota to women to increase their representation at national and sub national level but reserved seats policy has raised serious criticism due to indirect mode of elections. This research aims to contribute to the emerging literature on gender and quota by evaluating the reserved seats policy for women in Pakistan provided to facilitate representation to women at the national level. This paper also evaluates the problems and shortcoming of quota policy and suggests the type of gender quota appropriate to bridge the gender gap in politics in Pakistan.