It was just after dawn in Karachi when 23 year-old Bilal Ahmed joined a crowd of hopeful job seekers outside a garment factory. Clutching a worn folder of papers, he had waited months for a chance to work. “They said they needed ten workers, but there are over fifty of us here,” he sighed. Bilal’s frustration is far from unique.
In December 2022 over 30,000 Pakistanis applied for just 1,667 openings in Islamabad’s police force. This story illustrates a bigger picture. Pakistan’s population has surged to an estimated 240+ million, growing at about 2.55 per cent per year – one of the fastest rates globally with nearly two thirds of all Pakistanis under 30. In this context, unemployed youths like Bilal feel the squeeze of a system straining under its own growth. Without swift policy action, the country’s so called ‘demographic dividend’ risks turning into a humanitarian and economic crisis.
Pakistan observed World Population Day on July 11, the national conversation returns to a familiar theme: is the country doing enough to leverage its demographic potential - or is it inching toward a humanitarian and economic crisis?
In recent years, official sources have drawn attention to the enormity of Pakistan’s demographic challenge. According to the 2023 census, the population stands at 241.5 million. The country is already the fifth most populous and is projected to hit 263 million by 2030. Such growth is virtually unmatched outside sub-Saharan Africa. Analysts note that “only 27 countries have a higher growth rate” than Pakistan’s, and if it continues, the population could double by 2050. Meanwhile, roughly 40–41 per cent of Pakistanis are children under 15 (well over 90 million), and 65 per cent are below 30. This youth bulge could power rapid growth – if Pakistan invests in education, jobs and services – or it could unleash major instability if those investments do not arrive.
A young nation at a crossroads
With 64 per cent of Pakistan’s people under age 30, the country sits on a demographic precipice. If young Pakistanis can find jobs and education, they could drive a ‘demographic dividend’ of faster growth and poverty reduction. But if they remain unemployed and untrained, the result could be stagnation or unrest. Economists warn that Pakistan is already at risk. A Financial Times analysis earlier this year noted that South Asia’s demographic window could become a liability unless countries invest in inclusive growth – and it singled out Pakistan as ‘at the epicentre of this risk.’ In other words, the stakes for Pakistan are higher than its neighbours’.
The numbers tell a stark story. Pakistan must create roughly 1.5 million new jobs every year just to employ its young entrants into the labour force. The public sector is already saturated, so new opportunities must come from private enterprise. Yet growth has slowed to a crawl, inflation is high, and investment is scarce. A 2023 analysis found that one third of educated young people are unemployed. Even well-trained graduates like Bilal have to line up outside factories or government recruitment centres, competing by the thousands for a handful of positions.
At the same time, Pakistan’s gender gap limits the dividend. Only about 22 per cent of women participate in the labour force, one of the lowest rates in the region. Social norms and poverty push girls out of school early: many drop out after puberty because schools lack menstrual hygiene facilities and privacy, and because families may marry them off. This concern was front and centre at a Population Policy Roundtable hosted by the Ministry of National Health Services in collaboration with UNFPA and the Population Council in December 2024, highlighting, “early marriage and limited education for girls are directly linked to higher birth rates.” An economist, Qais Aslam, emphasises the remedy, “Delayed marriage, universal female education, and meaningful workforce participation are the only sustainable ways to improve our demographic indicators.” In practice, neither schools nor industry are keeping pace with the boom in youth.
While much of Pakistan’s reproductive health infrastructure relies on domestic partnerships, international funding plays a crucial role, especially through agencies like UNFPA, UNICEF, and the World Bank. But with global development budgets shrinking, many of these programmes face growing uncertainty.
In 2024, several European countries announced cuts to foreign aid allocations, including reproductive health funding. UNFPA Pakistan confirmed in a press statement that some awareness and service delivery programmes may face scaling down if alternate funding sources are not secured. These include contraceptive supply chains, school-based life skills programmes, and rural training for Lady Health Workers.
Dr Zeba Sathar, country director of the Population Council, warned in a recent op-ed, “Development partners have supported Pakistan’s population programme for decades. If that support declines now, just as we are gaining momentum, the consequences will be long-term and difficult to reverse.”
Scarcity, climate and inequality
Compounding Pakistan’s population challenge is a parallel crisis in water and environment, one that’s already altering the daily reality for young Pakistanis. The country is classified as ‘water scarce’ and is projected to reach ‘absolute water scarcity’ by 2025, with less than 500 cubic metres of water available per person annually, as noted by the United Nations. For students in low-income neighbourhoods, especially girls, this means walking long distances to fetch water instead of attending school. For young farmers and labourers, it means uncertain crop yields, lost income, and increasing migration to overcrowded cities. As climate change accelerates glacier melt and worsens floods and droughts, it’s Pakistan’s youth who are inheriting a fragile, resource-depleted future, one they didn’t create but will have to survive.
Nationwide, agriculture uses over 90 per cent of Pakistan’s water, mostly delivered by inefficient flood irrigation. This leaves little for cities or ecosystems. One estimate warns that some 30 million acre feet per year – water worth around $29 billion – washes unused into the sea. This scarcity exacerbates inequality. Nearly 39 per cent of Pakistan’s people now live in cities (and rising). But urban growth has outpaced planning and services. The result is a mushrooming of kachi abadis (informal settlements) on city outskirts, where millions live without clean taps, sewers or secure tenure. We estimate that around 45 per cent of Pakistanis live below the national poverty line, including 16.5 per cent in ‘extreme poverty’ (under the World Bank’s standard).
All of this underscores a simple truth: population issues in Pakistan cannot be addressed in isolation. Health, education, gender, employment and environment policies all intersect. Experts warn that piecemeal reforms won’t suffice. Integrated planning is essential – from schools that teach family planning, to job programmes that reach rural youth, to climate resilience projects that safeguard water – or else the youth bulge could become a powder keg.
Despite mounting challenges, young Pakistanis are not sitting idle. In schools, local communities, and on social media, a visible shift is taking shape, led particularly by women and girls who are challenging old norms and demanding their rights. From reproductive health to menstrual hygiene, taboo topics are being addressed head-on. Civil society groups, student organisations, and youth influencers are working together to expand access to information and dismantle harmful stigmas. This mobilisation reflects a generation that is not just aware of what’s missing, but determined to claim the support and autonomy they’ve long been denied.
One prominent example is Aahung, a Karachi based NGO working on sexual and reproductive health. Through years of advocacy, Aahung succeeded in integrating ‘Life Skills Based Education’ (LSBE) – essentially puberty and health education – into the Sindh school curriculum in 2018. Today, tens of thousands of middle school students in Sindh (mostly girls) learn in class about bodily changes, menstruation, consent and early marriage. As the UN Alliance on Child Rights found, students who received LSBE showed increased confidence and awareness about reproductive health. In other words, students are learning that their bodies and future choices matter – a foundation for slower population growth and better life outcomes.
Technology is bridging gaps too. Today dozens of youth influencers use TikTok, Instagram and YouTube to debunk myths about contraception, puberty and mental health. One 19- year-old influencer reported that her TikTok series on contraceptive methods “quickly went viral,” with viewers thanking her for demystifying a topic rarely covered in school or home. A platform called Sehat Kahani is a pioneering telemedicine network co founded by female doctors (Dr Sara Saeed Khurram and Dr Iffat Zafar) that connects women and girls – even in remote villages – to female health professionals via phone or video. In partnership with Lady Health Workers programme and NGOs like Ipas Pakistan, Sehat Kahani launched a hybrid model in 2020: local health workers equipped with smartphones can reach out to Sehat Kahani’s online doctors for confidential advice on family planning, safe abortion and reproductive health. For many women in conservative areas, simply speaking to a female doctor at home is revolutionary.
Behind these initiatives are countless others – student clubs, hotline services, social media campaigns – all joining a broader demand for reproductive justice. This grassroots movement does not have a formal budget or headline, but it may prove one of the country’s most important engines of change, coming from the youth, exactly when official systems are slow.
Government response: too little, too late?
In theory, Pakistan’s leaders have somewhat recognised the challenge. Last year, the Press Information Department (PID) highlighted that “Pakistan’s population is projected to reach 263 million by 2030” and stressed the need to manage growth and strike a balance with resources. In practice, official efforts have been a mixed bag. The government has revised the National Action Plan on Population (2025–30), setting ambitious targets – raise the contraceptive prevalence rate to 60 per cent by 2030, cut fertility to 2.2 children per woman, and curb the growth rate to 1.1 per cent. These align with earlier Council of Common Interests (CCI) recommendations and with global family planning commitments. Federal and provincial task forces have been reconstituted to coordinate on family planning, and agencies like the Ministry of Health are trying to integrate contraceptive services into broader health programs. UN agencies and NGOs have been enlisted to run awareness campaigns, using a new narrative of ‘Tawazun’ (balance) to encourage families to match their size to their resources. For example, the Population Council reports that ‘Tawazun’ – a culturally framed campaign about balance – was formally endorsed by the government in 2020 and even featured on a World Population Day postage stamp.
Despite these plans, experts say implementation is uneven. In practice, rural areas lag far behind. Healthcare access and female literacy – key to lower fertility – remain weak in many parts of Pakistan. Contraceptive use is low: national surveys put the current modern contraceptive prevalence around 30–34 per cent, with severe gaps in poor or remote communities. According to one official report, more than five million babies are born in Pakistan every year, and roughly two-thirds of the population is under 20. Critics say it’s “too little, too late”. Pakistan has barely slowed its growth rate or improved its maternal/child health outcomes.
In his address for World Population Day last July, President Asif Ali Zardari warned, “Our population is projected to reach 263 million by 2030. This is not just a number. It’s a call to action.” His remarks echoed a growing consensus: Pakistan is fast approaching a tipping point. To avoid a deeper crisis, the country must reduce fertility rates, improve access to quality education, particularly for girls, create decent jobs, and protect its shrinking natural resources. For the millions of young Pakistanis entering adulthood, these are not abstract policy concerns. They are the unanswered job ads, the crowded classrooms, and the clinics that lack medicine. Without serious investment, the youth of today may become a generation held back by the very system that promised to uplift them.
Wallia Khairi is a subeditor at You! magazine. She can be reached at wallia_khairihotmail.com