Pakistani women being left behind in the labour market is bad for society - Adeeba Malik

Throw in other factors to the equation ― such as age or faith ― and it’s easy to see how difficult it is for some candidates to submit a successful job application, let alone gain promotion to a higher position.

Research by the institute shows that Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani women are among those least likely to be able to fulfil their potential in the workplace.

QED Foundation has been helping people from a wide range of disadvantaged ethnic minority backgrounds to find work, set up their own businesses or go self-employed since 1990.

We work with job seekers from across Africa, Asia and Europe, with recent initiatives focused on refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine.

But many of the people who come to us for help are Pakistani women and, unless things change, that will be so for the foreseeable future ― because they are held back not only by their race and religion but by membership of a community that is all too often maligned, misrepresented and misunderstood.

Concentrated in low-paid work and often unable to progress beyond the lower levels of their organisations, even those who are promoted can expect to be paid much less than a white man in the same role.

Pakistani men face many of the same challenges: it is no coincidence that so many choose to be self-employed, even if it means forfeiting the security of a steady income.

Fortunately there is help out there. There are around 4,000 Pakistani-led not-for-profit organisations like QED Foundation around the UK, offering a range of services from helping people into employment to promoting health and wellbeing and providing sporting, recreational and cultural activities.

Often based in extremely disadvantaged neighbourhoods, many of them do sterling work in very difficult circumstances but they are held back by lack of money and limited access to resources, training and development support. As funding becomes ever more restricted, things will get worse, not better.

So we decided that the only way forward was to help them to help themselves.

NPO-UK is a network of organisations and activists supporting Britain’s 1.6 million people of Pakistani origin. We come together to share expertise, develop our skills and capacity and learn about new ways of working.

We discuss the challenges facing our communities and we advocate for them with a united voice and campaign for changes to public policy.

This is important because all too often the needs of British Pakistanis are overlooked by decision makers, partly because they have been less likely to articulate them clearly than other minority groups.

There is a growing awareness that we face unique challenges, and we provide a forum where politicians, civil servants and business leaders can find out about these issues and discuss ways of working with us to address them.

There are many reasons why Pakistani women have to overcome so many barriers to career progress and even to entering the workforce at all.

New arrivals, members of settled communities and younger and older job seekers all face different obstacles, which may include unconscious bias in recruitment processes, limited English language proficiency, lack of successful role models and awareness of a restricted range of career options. Our research with the University of Bristol shows that Pakistani migrant husbands have their own unique challenges.

But this is not just a problem for those who are trapped in low-paid insecure work or facing long periods of inactivity, nor for children whose prospects are blighted by intergenerational poverty.

Recruiting and promoting from a limited talent pool is costing both businesses and public sector organisations dearly.

Without a determined effort to understand and address the difficulties preventing groups like Pakistani women from progressing in the workplace, society as a whole will be poorer.

Adeeba Malik CBE DL is the deputy chief executive of QED Foundation, a Bradford-based national charity set up in 1990 that supports the social and economic advancement of disadvantaged ethnic minority communities.