Pakistan Demographic Survey 2020: Infant mortality rate drops to 56pc

KARACHI: Pakistan has performed well in bringing down the infant mortality rate from 75.2 percent to 56 percent, as per the recently released Pakistan Demographic Survey 2020.

The Pakistan Demographic Survey has been released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics after a gap of more than a decade. The last report was published in 2009, and looked at 2007 statistics.

The number of deaths of infants under the age of one per 1,000 live births, which was 75.2 per cent in 2007, is reduced to 56 per cent.

Pakistan’s fertility rate stands at 3.7. The report also shows that most women choose private hospitals and clinics to give birth instead of government facilities or at home. Life expectancy in Pakistan has moved down a few points for women from 68 years (2007) to 65.5 years (2020). However, men stand a little below women at 64.5.

Out of the total 4.3 million deaths in Pakistan from all causes, over 7,500 people died of dengue while over 650,000 people died of cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of death followed by paralysis.

The survey has also found a high number of suicides as some 9,872 people committed suicide. Of them, 3,992 people were from 15-19 age bracket and 3,417 people from 20-29 age bracket, showing that young people have higher tendency of taking the extreme step. In education and literacy, Punjab has performed better. Between 2018 and 2020, as per the survey, 70.31 percent of its total population (urban and rural) attended school. The next in line is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) with 56.2 per cent — significantly less than Punjab. Sindh is a few steps behind with 52.07 percent. The figure includes 33.65 percent of people from rural areas. Balochistan’s performance in this sector is the poorest. Only 32.53 per cent of its total population has ever attended school. Pakistan’s performance in higher education is quite dismal. Only 2.18 per cent of its total population has acquired higher education. A mere 3.53 per cent of people are graduates. Ten per cent of the population has completed education till the matric level. Data collection for this survey, carried out after a gap of 13 years, was tablet based — collected through electronic devices.