Cross border project in China-Pakistan economic corridor and its influence on women empowerment perspectives

Abstract

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a significant and inaugural project of the "Belt and Road" initiative which is considered as structure and manifesto for panoramic and fundamental collaboration between China and Pakistan. The CPEC project was initiated to develop economic growth and facilitate free trade between both countries. However, it has generated immense employment opportunities, education facilities, and improved quality of life for local citizens, specifically women, as well as international overreach. This study investigates and examines the benefits of CPEC project and its influence on women empowerment. Based on the background of the CPEC, this study has been carried out by applying a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods to fill the gap. Data was aggregated with the help of a survey questionnaire and interviews from the residents of the Thar region of Pakistan, which comes under CPEC route. In total, 306 samples were acquired and analysed using different statistical tools such as SPSS (Statistical package for social sciences) and PLS (Partial least squares) to formulate the study results. The findings revealed that the development of CPEC has remarkably improved the quality of life for women by providing enormous employment opportunities, education facilities, skills enhancement programs, and training facilities. The analyzed results will guide government policymakers and officials to promote operational activities in the region, develop new educational institutions, and create employment opportunities for the local community and women to obtain further development of CPEC projects.

Research on the impact of regional integration policy on carbon emissions——Taking the Yangtze River Economic Belt as an example

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Asia-China Knowledge Networks: State of the Field

“…Recently, China has also been reaching out to diverse local constituents in education, media, and energy sectors beyond the metropolitan political elite to deepen its engagement with Pakistan, as these actors are increasingly shaping the contours of what was assumed to be a Chinese project (Safdar 2021;Abb 2022). Some recent studies specifically focus on the impact of the CPEC on women and find that the project, while beneficial to their empowerment in general, needs to be more proactive in offering employment opportunities to educated women and improving the quality of life for rural women (Farooq, Gul, and Khan 2018;Saad et al 2020;Kumar et al 2022).…”

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