Demography news

Pakistan is no stranger to doing poorly in rankings regarding human development. Different surveys – by international organizations and government-run institutions – highlight the country’s poor performance in almost every sector. Earlier this year, Pakistan dropped seven places in the 2021-2022 Human Development Index that measures a country’s standard of living, health and education. Now, according to the Pakistan Demographic Survey, published by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on November 15, the country’s life expectancy has dropped to 65 years. Factors like access to healthcare, crime rate, diet and nutrition, exercise, hygiene, lifestyle, gender, and genetics have a huge effect on a nation’s life expectancy. Pakistan is a developing country with scarce resources. On top of that, its leaders have largely displayed immense apathy towards the problems faced by the people. Research carried out in 2019 showed that the country has only one doctor for every 1,200 patients. Stories about shortage of hospital beds, doctor absenteeism, overworked paramedic staff, and unavailability of medicines continue making headlines, and barely manage to grab the attention of the quarters that matter. Then, there’s complete disregard to public healthcare by the government which has allocated only Rs19 billion to the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) in the FY2022-23 budget.

There is also some good news in the survey. Between 2018 and 2020, the infant mortality rate in the country has fallen from 75.2 to 56. The fact that most women choose private hospitals and clinics to give birth rather than government facilities or at homes may be a factor in this. Other statistics in the survey show that during the past decade at least 650,000 died of cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of death in the country. There were also more than 75,000 deaths as a result of dengue while strokes also took a heavy toll on lives. Sadly, so did suicides. At least 9,872 people committed suicide, with 3,992 of them aged between 15 and 19 years. Another 3417 were aged between 20 and 29 years. It is disturbing that a large number of young people took this extreme step. It is also worth mentioning that in a country of 220 million, there are less than 500 psychiatrists to meet people’s mental health needs. While the survey also looks into other areas such as education, it shows we need to focus on health. At a time when life expectancy is rising around the world, it should not be falling in Pakistan. This is a statistic we need to change as quickly and as efficiently as possible.