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Socio-economic conditions in Pakistan

July 05, 2020 - 3 min read

According to World Bank data from World Bank data for Pakistan (accessed 2020-07-04) as well as auxiliary data from the World Bank Pakistan country profile (accessed 2020-07-04), I extracted some figures which give a rough idea of socio-economic conditions in Pakistan. They are listed as follows:

  • GDP:

    • Pakistan’s GDP for 2019 was USD 278.222B
    • It peaked in 2018 at USD 314.568B

    Pakistan's GDP

  • Population:

    • 216.6M as of 2019
    • 45M as of 1960

    Pakistan's population

    • Population growth rate of 2.1 % as of 2018
    • Child mortality rate (for children under 5 years) of 6.9 % as of 2018
  • School enrollment (primary school):

    • 94.3 % as of 2018
    • 49.3 % as of 1971

    Pakistan's school enrollment

    • Primary education completion: 71 % as of 2018
    • Secondary education enrollment: 43 % as of 2018
    • Gender Disparity Index of 1 for primary school and secondary school enrollment combined: This indicates an equal enrollment of boys and girls
  • Percentage of people living below the poverty line:

    • As per national records:

      • 24.3 % as of 2015
      • 64.3 % as of 2001
      • There has been consistent annual decrease in this ratio over the years

    Pakistan's poverty figures

    • When adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (2011) - I didn’t quite understand the 2011 bit there:

      • 3.9 % as of 2018
      • 8.3 % in 2010
      • 28.6 % in 2000
      • 58.9 % in 1990
  • Life expectancy:

    • 67.1 years as of 2018
    • 45.3 years as of 1960
    • Consistent increase over the years

    Life expectancy in Pakistan

  • Gross National Income (GNI) per capita:

    • USD 1530 as of 2019
    • Peaked at USD 1590 in 2018
    • USD 90 in 1960
    • More or less consistent increase over the years

    GNI per capita for Pakistan

    • USD 5110 when adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity as of 2018
  • Military spending is 4 % of GDP as of 2018
  • 72.6 % of the population have access to a cell phone and a subscription as of 2018
  • 15.5 % of the population uses the internet as of 2018

    • An internet user is one who has accessed internet in any form in the last 3 months

For more information on the digital landscape in Pakistan, checkout the post on Digital landscape in Pakistan

Thoughts

It seems that Pakistan is doing somewhat better than I thought. Some issues of concern that I see are:

  • Low secondary education enrollment rate

    • This needs to be drastically improved
    • Possible reasons could be:

      • Families don’t want their children to study
      • Children want to or are forced to earn an income instead of studying:

        • Due to familial financial constraints
        • Due to a lack of interest in education
        • Prioritization of short-term gain over long-term
  • High child mortality rate

    • Lack of access to medical facilities in remote areas
  • National estimates of poverty are quite high at around a quarter of the population
  • Cell phone usage is quite high and a large segment of the population can be served through that
  • Internet usage is quite low and needs to expand quite drastically so that more people can have access to knoweldge, information, and digital services