Female Students’ Autonomy in Vote Casting of Punjab, Pakistan

Women are an important element of a country’s population. Thus, their contribution and participation in every sector is equally important as of men. So, to make them active participant for development and prosperous of the country, there is necessary fully participation in vote casting. The purpose of the study was to find out female students’ awareness, autonomy and hindrances in vote casting in Punjab, Pakistan. The present study was conducted with duel methodology, quantitative and qualitative. In quantitative, the universe of the study was the five universities of the Punjab via randomly; total sample six hundred female students. A structured questionnaire written in English language was used. In qualitative, five focus group discussions, one focus group discussion in each university and total five universities, a structured checklist was made and convenient sampling technique was adopted for both the methods for the collection of the data. The results of the study indicate that educated females have awareness about their vote importance and worth. They are not fully satisfied of existing vote casting system. They mention also that they cannot go on polling station alone for casting their vote. They are so enthusiastic and encouraging to participate in election but they don’t have autonomy or independence to cast their vote as their own will. They have to face some cultural, traditional and family pressure hurdles to cast vote.