Dr. Kashif Zaheer Malik (Assistant Professor) at the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS) along with his Co-PIs, Dr. Muhammad Meki, and Simon Quinn from University of Oxford collaborated with Careem, an online ride sharing platform, to conduct a pilot study. The project will provide fifty women with auto-rickshaws and the necessary training under Careem’s driver membership program.

The aim of the study is to encourage female participation in the workforce, not only by providing a group of female drivers with a direct employment opportunity, but also to increase a safer access to public transportation for working women in Pakistan. The project may have significant impact as public transport in the country is often unsafe for women and adds further constraints to female employment opportunities. To measure impacts on female earnings and other household level outcomes, the study will select another group of fifty women as control group and utilize high-frequency administrative data to explore the potential engagement of women with the transportation sector.