ISLAMABAD: Worldwide Bureaucracy Indicators (WWBI) has estimated that in South Asian region, both Pakistan and India have largest public sectors with share of 60 percent of formal wage employment.

WWBI is unique cross-national dataset on public sector employment and wages developed by World Bank's 'Bureaucracy Lab'.

According to indicators, wage bill in South Asian countries, relative to their public expenditure, is on average, seven percentage points lower than global average of 28 percent. There is significant variance among countries in region, it says.

In Afghanistan, public sector wages make up half of all public spending, yet Pakistan only spends three percent of its public expenditure on public sector wages.

In South Asia region, 37pc of total public sector workforce is employed in public administration, followed by healthcare (28pc) and education (26pc).

Compared to global average, share of education and healthcare employees in public sector paid employment is lower in South Asia region. Pakistan has largest share of education employees working in public sector workforce (around 35pc).

Globally, share of women working in public sector is 46pc, whereas in South Asia, share is considerably lower (24pc), yet it varies significantly across region. In Pakistan, only 2pc of public administration workers are female.

Compared to private sector employees, region's average public sector wage premium is above global average.

Public sector employees in Pakistan have highest wage premiums compared to their private sector counterparts (over 60pc), followed by Sri Lanka (54pc) and Nepal (40pc). However, public sector employees face wage penalty in Afghanistan (around 20pc).