EDITORIAL: The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) deserves full marks for doing what few public institutions in this country manage: producing rigorous, transparent, and continuous data.
The Pakistan Panel Household Survey (PPHS) 2024, the latest edition of a series that has been tracking economic and social indicators for more than two decades, marks a significant milestone. In an age where decision-making is defined by data, the absence of reliable, longitudinal evidence has long crippled policymaking in Pakistan. Countries and organisations that fail to leverage data will simply be left behind. That much is already old news.
It is therefore heartening that the PPHS not only survives but expands. The 2024 round successfully re-tracked 76 percent of households first surveyed in 2010 — a remarkable achievement for any long-term national study — and extended coverage from 16 to 30 districts, now including major cities such as Lahore, Karachi, Hyderabad, and Peshawar. For the first time, the survey was conducted entirely digitally, allowing real-time data monitoring and greater accuracy. That is a leap forward for evidence-based policy, one that ought to be institutionalised across all national data-gathering exercises.
Even within its limited sample, the PPHS already exposes the key challenges policymakers must confront. Literacy rates may have improved, but 34 percent of students between grades three and eight still cannot solve a basic division problem at grade two level. Dropout rates of 34 percent at middle school and 21 percent at matriculation reflect how financial constraints — cited by 71 percent of surveyed parents — continue to undercut educational mobility. Female labour force participation has inched up from 23.7 to 26.9 percent over 14 years, but women remain confined to low-value agricultural and informal work. These are not just numbers; they define the limits of progress; again underscoring why data is so important.
The survey also charts advances that merit acknowledgement. Health outcomes have improved markedly, with antenatal care now reaching 80.9 percent of mothers and skilled birth attendance up to 88.5 percent, while home births have dropped to 11.6 percent. Child stunting has declined from 60 to 43 percent and underweight prevalence from 50 to 33 percent. Poverty, too, has receded: national poverty now stands at 30.5 percent, down from 41 percent in 2010, and rural poverty has dropped from 46 to 37.5 percent. But these gains are uneven, fragile, and deeply vulnerable to inflation — which 60 percent of households still identify as the greatest shock to their livelihoods.
That last finding should worry policymakers most. The PPHS shows that while poverty has declined, inequality has widened, as higher-income households’ consumption has grown faster than that of the poor. The report also notes that better inflation control alone could have reduced poverty by seven percentage points. That insight should be the centrepiece of any economic strategy moving forward.
Still, the larger message of the PPHS lies beyond individual indicators. Pakistan now has enough data, at least for a start — clean, credible, and longitudinal — to understand what has worked and where progress has stalled. But data is only as useful as the actions it inspires. Policymaking in Pakistan has too often been reactive, fragmented, and detached from evidence. The real work begins when surveys like these shape budgets, guide social protection, and reform education and labour systems with measurable outcomes.
The PPHS is a model of institutional competence and intellectual continuity. It demonstrates that despite fiscal and political instability, empirical rigour is possible — and indispensable. If this effort is sustained, expanded, and embedded in policymaking, Pakistan can finally move from debating symptoms to addressing causes. Evidence now exists, the challenge is to act on it.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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