Human development index of provinces

The Population and Housing Census of 2023 has generated a lot of useful information on key indicators. The statistics are available at the regionally disaggregated level down to the districts.

The objective of this article is to construct the Human Development Index (HDI) of the four Provinces of Pakistan, with the magnitude of key indicators from the Census.

The Human Development Index, as developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has the following three components:

• Education

• Health

• Income

The 2023 Census provides estimates for each Province of the following indicators of education:

• Literacy Rate

• Gross Primary Enrollment Rate

• Gross Middle and Secondary Enrollment Rate

• Gross Intermediate and Graduation Enrollment Rate

• % of In-School Children

As an example, there is a significant divergence in the literacy rate among the provinces. The highest literacy rate in 2023 was in Punjab at 66.3 percent, followed by Sindh at 57.5 percent, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa at 51 percent and Balochistan, 42 percent.

The national literacy rate is reported by the Census at 61 percent. Based on the findings of earlier surveys, there appears to have been only a marginal increase in the literacy rate since 2019-20. In fact, it has increased only in Punjab. Apparently, the biggest decline is in Balochistan from 46 percent to 42 percent.

There is also substantial variation in the percentage of children in-school, aged from 5 to 16 years. It is relatively high at 73 percent in Punjab and the lowest in Balochistan at 42 percent. The corresponding magnitudes for Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are 53 percent and 62 percent, respectively.

Turning to the indicators of the health status in the provinces of the population, there are two indicators as follows:

• percent of Population with Disability and Functional Limitation

• percent of Population above the age of 60 years (as a proxy for life expectancy)

The first health indicator of population with disability and functional limitation is the lowest in Balochistan at 8.5 percent, followed by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa at 11.5 percent, Sindh at 11.6 percent and Punjab at 14.1 percent.

However, the opposite ranking is observed in the percentage of population above the age of 60 years. It is the highest in Punjab at 10.3 percent and the lowest in Balochistan at 5.5 percent.

There are five indicators that have been used to get the relative position with regard to per capita income in the provinces. The size and quality of housing on average of households is a good proxy of per capita income. In addition, per capita income is generally higher in the urban areas than in the rural areas and within rural areas, larger settlements are likely to witness more economic activity.

Therefore, the indicators used for per capita income from the Census are as follows:

• Size (in Rooms) of the Average Housing Unit

• Quality of the Average Housing Unit, measured by percentage of pucca housing units

• % of Urban Population

• % of Population in large Rural Settlements, with population above 2000

• % share of Urban Population in the Primate City

Sindh has the highest ranking in three indicators, especially those related to the extent and type of urbanization. Punjab has the highest ranking in the housing indicators. For example, 81 percent of the housing units in Punjab are pucca, as compared to 58 percent in Sindh, 56 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and only 20 percent in Balochistan.

The index values in the Human Development Index and in the components of each province is given in Table 1.

Punjab has the highest index value in education, followed by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Perhaps surprisingly, Sindh now has the third position in access to education of the population.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has the highest rank in health, followed closely by Punjab and Sindh. As expected, Sindh has the highest index value in per capita income, due to the concentration of economic activity in Karachi. Here again, there is a surprise that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has the lowest index value.

Overall, Punjab emerges as the province with the highest HDI of 0.550. Sindh comes next with a HDI of 0.505, followed by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan with HDIs of 0.442 and 0.312, respectively.

Both Punjab and Sindh can be considered as at the medium level of human development of above 0.5. However, both Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are at a low level of the HDI.

A Provincial ranking of the HDI was presented by the UNDP in its Pakistan Human Development Report of 2020 for 2018-19, with data mostly from Surveys carried out by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

A comparison of the Rankings in 2018-19 and 2023 reveals that Punjab has replaced Sindh as the Province with the highest HDI. Sindh is now ranked second. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan continue to have the third and fourth rankings, respectively. Also, the divergence between the highest and the lowest HDI has increased over the last five years among the provinces. Balochistan has fallen further behind.

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                                    Table 1
                  Human Development Index of the Provinces
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                            Punjab      Sindh      Khyber-       Balochistan
                                                 Pakhtunkhwa                
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Education                    0.747      0.487      0.556               0.227
Health                       0.485      0.481      0.510               0.376
Income                       0.459      0.549      0.305               0.356
Human Development   Index    0.550      0.505      0.442               0.312
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