She Works From Dawn to Dusk, But Can’t Count the Money She Earns

Najma, a 28-year-old woman from Sindh, Pakistan, works as a housemaid in three homes across her neighborhood to support her children and husband. Every morning, Najma (not her real name) ties her scarf tightly around her head and steps out before sunrise. She walks from one house to another, scrubbing floors, washing dishes and doing laundry, day in and day out. She earns what might seem like a decent sum: 2,500 Pakistani rupees (PKR) ($9) per month from one house, 8,000 PKR ($28) from another, and 2,000 PKR ($7) from the third. But Najma has no idea if the money she receives is fair.

Najma never went to school. Her parents believed that educating a girl was unnecessary, saying, “She will just get married.” Now, as a mother, she wishes she had been given a different future. She often feels helpless when she cannot read a medicine label, a bus sign, or her children’s school reports. 

When her employers give her money, she relies on trust, unable to count it herself. “I don’t understand the calculations,” she says quietly. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve been paid more than I should have, sometimes less. But I don’t really know. People just hand me the money and say, ‘This is your pay.’ And I [have to] believe them.” She can count small numbers, but anything beyond 25,000 PKR feels confusing and unreachable. 

At home, Najma hands over all her earnings to her husband and keeps herself out of any financial decisions. “He looks after all the expenses: the gas bill, the groceries, the electricity. I don’t do the budgeting. I just work. That’s my only job,” she says.

Financial marginalization of Pakistani women

Najma’s story is not about laziness or disinterest. It is about being excluded from decisions that affect her life because she was never given the tools to understand them. She represents thousands of illiterate working women in Pakistan who contribute to their households through labor, but are invisible when it comes to managing finances or making choices.

In fact, only 46% of women in Pakistan are literate, compared to 70% of men. In rural areas, where many girls never complete primary school, let alone secondary or higher education, this number drops drastically. Cultural norms, early marriages, lack of access to schools and poverty continue to block girls from receiving the education they deserve. 

And the lack of access to education for women directly affects their ability to gain financial independence, which is equally limited. According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, only 20% of women participate in the labor force, and even fewer have access to formal employment, property rights or financial services like bank accounts or microcredit. Many women work in informal sectors, home-based work, agriculture or domestic labor, where wages are low and exploitation is common. 

Disturbingly, a large portion of these women are unable to read the terms of their work contracts or calculate their own earnings. This financial marginalization is deeply rooted in the socio-cultural values that shape gender roles in Pakistani society. In many communities, there is a persistent belief that women should not make decisions about their own lives, including choices about education, careers or marriage. Instead, these decisions are often made by male family members, fathers, brothers or husbands. 

Tools to help illiterate women manage money

With such low levels of literacy and financial education, is it possible for women like Najma to become financially included? We argue that it is, and we have been working to make it a reality. In collaboration, My Oral Village and Dr. Salima Meherali and her research team at the University of Alberta have implemented an inclusive tool aimed at helping women with low or no literacy take charge of their earnings: the Orali Table™.

The Orali Table™ (formerly known as 4Share) is an Android app that enables poorly schooled people to build on their proven abilities to count cash. The app translates the banknotes and coins that they handle daily into written numbers, allowing them to verify and record their transactions (watch this 5-minute video to see it in action). The app is a free-standing component of a broader suite of Oral Information Management (OIM) tools designed and tested in several countries by My Oral Village. Once installed on a smartphone or tablet, Orali Table runs offline, so it does not consume pricey data. 

We need a larger movement to help illiterate women achieve financial inclusion

While the tools we’ve developed provide an important contribution toward financial inclusion, they must be part of a larger movement. Other essential strategies for researchers, policy makers and financial service providers to help illiterate women achieve true financial independence include:

• Partner with banks and mobile banking services to offer simplified account opening procedures, especially for women without formal education or documentation.
• Conduct community workshops using pictures, hands-on demonstrations and storytelling to teach financial numeracy and record-keeping skills.
• Use local facilitators who speak the same language and understand the cultural barriers women face.
• Encourage the formation of community savings groups, where women meet regularly to pool money, learn and share skills like financial numeracy from one another, and build financial discipline. These groups offer not just financial security but also emotional support and confidence-building.
• Address patriarchal norms by involving male family members in financial literacy programs.
• Promote shared decision-making models, which reduce resistance and help ensure women’s continued participation in financial matters.

Breaking cycles of dependence

No country can move forward when half of its population is held back. Women's empowerment, through educational and financial independence, is key to progress. When illiterate women gain financial literacy and numeracy skills, they are gaining the tools to break cycles of dependence and achieve financial autonomy and decision-making power in their own lives. For women, financial literacy leads to empowerment.

Najma does not need charity. She needs education, opportunity and the dignity of knowing and managing the fruits of her own labor.