Pakistan had a net negative migration of 1.6 million people, the highest of all countries in 2023, according to the World Population Prospects 2024 report released by the United Nations. Other Asian nations like India (-980,000), China (-570,000), and Bangladesh (-550,000) are also far up the ranking. Pakistan's figure of 1.62 million includes 541,000 Afghans who were expelled from the country last year. Net migration is the net total of migrants during the period, that is, the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants, including both citizens and noncitizens.
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| Top Countries Losing People to Emigration. Source: Visual Capitalist |
Pakistan Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment data shows that 862,625 Pakistanis went to work overseas, mostly to Gulf Arab nations, in 2023. The US government granted 16,320 immigrant visas to Pakistani nationals. Another 11,861 immigrant visas were given to Pakistanis by the Canadian government in the same period. The total number of new Pakistani immigrants admitted as permanent residents in North America in 2023 was 28,181. It is likely that a similar number of Pakistani migrants arrived in Europe last year. Altogether, the total number of Pakistanis emigrants adds up to about a million. The remaining 600,000 are most likely non-citizens deported from Pakistan.
With a growing share of the working age and insufficient job opportunities, South Asian nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the largest labor exporters in the world.
Dependency ratio, defined as the percentage of children and retirees to the working age population, is rapidly declining in Pakistan (current dependency ratio is 69.03%) and the rest of the developing nations of Asia and Africa. This demographic shift means that the world's richest and most powerful nations with the largest share of working populations will no longer be in Europe and North America by 2050. Among South Asian nations, Bangladesh has already joined the list of top 10 nations in terms of the largest share of the working age population. India and Pakistan are expected to join it by 2050. Increasingly better educated working age population is expected to significantly enhance their productivity and increase their incomes.
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| Shift in Share of Working Age Populations. Source: NY Times |
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| Declining Dependency Ratio in Pakistan. Source: Trading Economics/World Bank |
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| Global Age Dependency Ratio Map. Source: World Population Review |
New York Times' visual journalist Lauren Leatherby recently described this major demographic and economic shift in the following words: "The richest most powerful countries today have long had these really large working-age populations. And economists agree that that’s been a huge, huge advantage economically and geopolitically. And meanwhile, a lot of developing nations have had quite high dependency ratios having a high number of children compared to working-age people. And so, I think we know a lot of these storylines one by one, but putting it all together, it’s just like the world is going to shift really dramatically".
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| Current Share of Working Age Populations. Source: NY Times |
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| Prijected Share of Working Age Populations in 2050. Source: NY Times |
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| GDP Ranking Changes Till 2075. Source: Goldman Sachs Investment Research |
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| Economic Growth Rate Till 2075. Source: Goldman Sachs Investment Research |
Economic Impact of Slower Population Growth:
Daly and Gedminas argue that slowing population growth in the developed world is causing their economic growth to decelerate. At the same time, the economies of the developing countries are driven by their rising populations. Here are four key points made in the report:
1) Slower global potential growth, led by weaker population growth.
2) EM convergence remains intact, led by Asia’s powerhouses. Although real GDP growth has slowed in both developed and emerging economies, in relative terms EM growth continues to outstrip DM growth.
3) A decade of US exceptionalism that is unlikely to be repeated.
4) Less global inequality, more local inequality.
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| Goldman Sachs' Revised GDP Projections. Source: The Path to 2075 |
Demographic Dividend:
With rapidly aging populations and declining number of working age people in North America, Europe and East Asia, the demand for workers will increasingly be met by major labor exporting nations like Bangladesh, China, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia and Vietnam. Among these nations, Pakistan is the only major labor exporting country where the working age population is still rising faster than the birth rate.
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| Pakistan Population Youngest Among Major Asian Nations. Source: Nikkei Asia |
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| World Population 2022. Source: Visual Capitalist |
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| World Population 2050. Source: Visual Capitalist |
Over a million Pakistani university students are currently enrolled in STEM courses. Over 10 million Pakistanis are currently working/living overseas, according to the Bureau of Emigration. Before the COVID19 pandemic hit in 2020, more than 600,000 Pakistanis left the country to work overseas in 2019. Nearly 700,000 Pakistanis have already migrated in this calendar year as of October, 2022. The average yearly outflow of Pakistani workers to OECD countries (mainly UK and US) and the Middle East was over half a million in the last decade.
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| Consumer Markets in 2030. Source: WEF |
World's 7th Largest Consumer Market:
Pakistan's share of the working age population (15-64 years) is growing as the country's birth rate declines, a phenomenon called demographic dividend. With its rising population of this working age group, Pakistan is projected by the World Economic Forum to become the world's 7th largest consumer market by 2030. Nearly 60 million Pakistanis will join the consumer class (consumers spending more than $11 per day) to raise the country's consumer market rank from 15 to 7 by 2030. WEF forecasts the world's top 10 consumer markets of 2030 to be as follows: China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Pakistan, Japan, Egypt and Mexico. Global investors chasing bigger returns will almost certainly shift more of their attention and money to the biggest movers among the top 10 consumer markets, including Pakistan. Already, the year 2021 has been a banner year for investments in Pakistani technology startups.
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| Pakistan Demographics |
Haq's Musings
South Asia Investor Review
Pakistan is the 7th Largest Source of Migrants in OECD Nations
Pakistani-Americans: Young, Well-educated and Prosperous
Last Decade Saw 16.5 Million Pakistanis Migrate Overseas
Growing Pakistani Diaspora in North America
A Million Pakistani University Students Enrolled in STEM Fields
Two Million Pakistanis Entering Job Market Every Year
Pakistan Projected to Be 7th Largest Consumer Market By 2030
Pakistan Now: Darkest Before Dawn?
Growing Demand For Pakistani Workers in Gulf Arab Nations
7 comments:
Countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh having to export its labour force in such large numbers overseas can be considered an indictment of the lack of job opportunities or poor pay in their own countries. That said, such mass emigration does come with some advantages as well for their native countries in the short term in the form of remittances that can reduce poverty and chances of social unrest.
A classic case I can point out in India is that of Kerala. Kerala is often regarded as the most literate, socially developed and urbanised state in India with very little urban-rural divide. And yet, paradoxically the state has almost no industries and agriculture (except for some cash crops like spices, tea, coffee, rubber etc) and as a result has a very high level of unemployment as well. It has a government that is effectively bankrupt and struggling to pay even salaries and pensions, and whose sole revenue sources are fuel taxes and the sales of liquor and lottery. How then did Kerala become so affluent? The answer is the remittances from overseas, primarily from the Gulf states. An estimated 2 million Keralites work in the Middle East alone - a disproportionately high number when you consider that the state's population is around 34 million. As a result, this geographically small state also boasts 4 international airports to cater to the travel needs of its legions of expatriates working in the Gulf.
And it isn't just the case of unskilled labourers, but also medical workers and other skilled professionals from the state who emigrated to Europe, North America and Japan besides the Gulf states. Some like M. A. Yusuff Ali (who owns the Lulu hypermarkets and shopping malls) became successful entrepreneurs - something one can never hope to become in Kerala due to its militant left-wing politics and trade unionism that has scared away investors and shuttered factories.
But there are downsides to a state/province or a country depending too much on overseas remittances as well. For instance, a downturn in the Gulf economies and the resultant lay offs, or a new war in the Middle east that leads to an exodus would potentially break Kerala's relative affluence and push people back into poverty once again unless they are able to find employment elsewhere. In the long term, there is no alternative sustainable road to prosperity for a country other than investing in industries and job generation at home.
@Vineeth
It is not just layoff/war that is the downside, it is the problems you mentioned (lack of tax revenues) are big issues. Kerala is not affluent in the real sense, it is that Kerala managed OECD level standard of life thanks to remittance economy combined with high public spending and a privately educated population.
Kerala doesn’t have OECD level standard of living.LOL
It’s been into massaging HDI figures for the past 50 years.
If it has such a fantastic standard of living why are people not flooding in from other parts of India?
Also its educated leave for the Gulf as well as internally to cities like Bangalore Chenna and Hyderabad..
@Anon:
You seem to confuse several things.
Having a high QoL has nothing to do with industrial capacity or jobs availability. In Kerala, there are no jobs, no revenues other than lottery tax, alcohol sales tax and tourism. However if you invest remittance money into education and health care, you could get OECD level HDI (life expectancy above 75 years, literacy above 95%, infant mortality of 5 per 1000 etc.). Now give credit where its due - it was possible to do this in Kerala only because communists largely reduced the devastating effects of caste system among Hindus and Muslims in kerala are not sectarian in a way that is found in N.India or Pakistan.
Kerala was always sociologically advanced relative to other parts of South Asia from the 19 th century. Maharaja of Travancore was a visionary.
Also Kerala has never been plundered like the Northern plains have been on average twice every century so incremental wealth accretion occurred century after century..
Communism did nothing for the Keralites except have an economy where women have to work as maids in slave like conditions in the GCC.
@Anon
Why there were no such visionaries in other parts of India? It was land reforms done by Communists that destroyed feudalism of upper caste Hindus. Also, Hindu kings in Kerala got reform ideas largely from missionaries.
On the other hand, investment in healthcare is usually wasted if there is no infra that channels that money into lower end entities. In kerala, these lower end channels were dispensaries, primary health care centers and functioning schools created by successive governments (which were mostly communist).
By putting a Hindu King in visionary post, you largely avoid the onus of accepting contributions from "foreign ideas" - ie, Islam, Christianity and Communism. This shows that you have a largely RSS version of naive history in your head. It was also under the plunderers that India became second largest economy after China.
Maids in GCC are by all extend likely to be better treated than maids in much of India where they not only don't earn min. wage, but have to live with the taboo of caste and social structure. Only when you compare with Europe, GCC is looking bad.
Remittances soar to $3b in Aug
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2494858/remittances-soar-to-3b-in-aug
KARACHI:
Workers' remittances sent home by overseas Pakistanis remained strong at nearly $3 billion in August 2024, marking a significant 40.5% increase compared to the same month last year. This robust growth is attributed to the prolonged stability of the rupee against the dollar and a surge in overseas employment, particularly in the Middle East, which allowed more expatriates to support their families back home.
According to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), remittance inflows rose to $2.94 billion in August 2024, up from $2.09 billion in August 2023. However, the inflows experienced a slight decline compared to $2.99 billion in July 2024. Cumulatively, remittances surged by 44% to $5.94 billion in the first two months (July-August) of the current fiscal year 2024-25, compared to the same period last year.
The average monthly inflow of nearly $3 billion during the first two months of FY25 is notably better than the full-year average of $2.68 billion per month in FY24, suggesting that the growth momentum could be sustainable moving forward.
Speaking to The Express Tribune, Tahir Abbas, Head of Research at Arif Habib Limited (AHL), noted that the major growth in remittances was recorded from Middle Eastern countries. A significant number of Pakistanis found employment in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in recent months, contributing to the increase in remittances.
Abbas dismissed concerns about the impact of declining international petroleum prices on remittance inflows, stating that the current downward trend in oil prices is more of a normalisation than a sharp decline. He explained that oil prices below $70 per barrel do not pose a significant threat to remittance inflows from oil-dependent Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are major sources of remittances for Pakistan.
"Even if oil prices briefly dip below $60 per barrel, it would not destabilise remittance inflows. However, if prices were to fall below $50 per barrel, it could hurt receipts, though such a scenario is not foreseen at present," Abbas explained.
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From Arif Habib
Remittances increased by 40% YoY to $ 2.9bn during Aug’24
Remittances by overseas Pakistanis increased by 40% YoY to USD 2.9bn during Aug'24 compared to USD 2.1bn during Aug’23. On MoM basis, remittances decreased by 2%.
During 2MFY25, remittances went up by 44% YoY to USD 5.9bn as compared to USD 4.1bn in 2MFY24.
@StateBank_Pak
#remittances #SBP #Pakistan #Economy #AHL
https://x.com/ArifHabibLtd/status/1833164216926343427
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