Topic: Disparity between rural & urban life

Submitted To:

Prof. Lubna Uzair

Submitted By:

Shafiq Ahmad Watto

BC 11- 635

Section- D Hailey College of Commerce

University of the Punjab

Table of contents

Definition Introduction Health care in rural and urban areas Health care facilities table Education facilities Schools without Facilities table Trends in Poverty in Rural & Urban areas Conclusion

Rural Societies:Pakistan is an agriculture country and 80% of its people form the rural population of the country. The villages, towns and small cities form the rural areas of Pakistan. Their main profession is cultivation and ploughing. The entire population of Pakistan is scattered and resides in villages, towns and big cities. They pursue different professions to earn their livelihood. Village is the most important and pivotal centre of rural life of Pakistan. Our villages badly lack in civic amenities. There is no proper system of drainage. The drinking water and electricity are not available in a large number of our villages. There are no hospitals, schools, post offices and markets in most of the villages making the life difficult and unhygienic. The village population, due to the difficult living environs in the villages, keeps on migrating to urban areas where better facilities of social life and brighter chances of earning sustenance are available.

Urban Societies:

Urban areas in Pakistan completely differ from rural areas in the life pattern. The urban areas are the centre of social life with greater facilities and amenities of life.

The urban population of Pakistan represents about a third of the total. Two cities have a dominating position – Karachi and Lahore. Since the 1960s, government policy has been directed towards the dispersal of industry, which had become heavily concentrated in Karachi. As a consequence, urban growth has been more evenly distributed among several cities. Rapid and unplanned urban expansion has been parallel by deterioration in living conditions, particularly in the housing conditions of lower income groups. Many urban households are unable to pay rent for the cheapest form of available housing and live in makeshift shacks. Water supply and sewerage system are inadequate, and in many areas residents have to share communal water taps. Inadequate urban transport is also a major problem.

The urban areas, unlike rural areas, are well-planned and well-built with modern residential colonies. The big cities, which form the portion of our urban areas, are the centres of high modern education. A large number of prestigious educational institutions are situated in the big cities which attract the students from all parts of the country. The urban areas have become the centre of social activity because of their multifarious aspects of social life. The industrial progress and the location of Government and other departments in the urban areas have made these areas prosperous and progressing.

Introduction:

Pakistan was a predominantly rural country at independence, and the rural populationstill constitutes about two -thirds of the total population. However, it is now the mosturbanized country in South Asia, with some 58 million people living in cities. Thisnumber is increasing at rates of 3.3 percent (nearly three times faster than in ruralareas) as a result of the structural transformation of the economy and migration tourban areas in expectations of better employment opportunities and higher incomes.The urbanization will increase even more rapidly as the share of industry andcommerce increases. The urban population is therefore expected to rise by another 70- 80 million by 2030, or nearly two -thirds of the total population. Karachi and Lahore

will be among the world’s leading mega cities.There are about 50,000 villages in the country with populations below 10,000; around448 small towns with population less than 100,000; 40 medium size towns withpopulation above 100,000; 7 metropolitan cities of Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala,Hyderabad, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Quetta with population in excess of 1 million;and the two mega cities of Karachi and Lahore.Infrastructure and services in both rural and urban areas are deficient and substantialimprovements are needed. However, the quality of life in rural areas is much lowerthan in urban areas and it continue to lag in the availability of physical infrastructure,education and health facilities, safe drinking water supply and sanitation and other social services.

Health care in rural and urban areas:

Healthcare in Pakistan is administered mainly in the private sector which accounts for approximately 80% of all outpatient visits. The public sector was until recently led by the Ministry of Health, however the Ministry was abolished in June 2011 and all health responsibilities (mainly planning and fund allocation) were devolved to provincial Health Departments which had until now been the main implementers of public sector health programs. Like other South Asian countries, health and sanitation infrastructure is adequate in urban areas but is generally poor in rural areas. About 19% of the population and 30% of children under age of five are malnourished.

Ministry of Health of Pakistan states that health expenditure of period 2007-08 was 3.791 billion Pakistani rupees while that spent on development was 14.272 billion. In June 2011, the United Nations Population Fund released a report on The State of the World's Midwifery. It contained new data on the midwifery workforce and policies relating to newborn and maternal mortality for 58 countries. The 2010 maternal mortality rate per 100,000 births for Pakistan is 260. This is compared with 376.5 in 2008 and 541.2 in 1990. The under 5 mortality rate, per 1,000 births is 89 and the neonatal mortality as a percentage of under 5's mortality is 48. The aim of this report is to highlight ways in which the Millennium Development Goals can be achieved, particularly Goal 4 – Reduce child mortality and Goal 5 – improve maternal death. In Pakistan the number of midwives per 1,000 live births is 10 and the lifetime risk of death for pregnant women is 1 in 93.

There is a huge imbalance in these figures. In Balochistan, for instance, the maternal mortality is 785 deaths per 100,000 live births which is nearly triple the national rate. It should be noted here that in rural Pakistan, maternal mortality is nearly twice than that in cities. The sad reality is that 80 per cent of maternal deaths are preventable.

Pakistan is committed to the goal of making its population healthier, as evidenced by the continuing strong support for the Social Action Program (SAP) and by the new vision for health, nutrition, and population outlined in the National Health Policy Guidelines published by the government.

Lady health workers: A recent initiative, lady health worker, has turned out to be a promising community-based health worker program. These workers bring health information, some basic health care and family planning services to doorsteps of women. Presently, 96,000 women are serving as in this initiative in their home villages.

Telemedicine: Over the last five years, telemedicine efforts have been attempted to connect rural population to doctors in the city. However, there has been limited success. A new initiative has begun in Karachi to connect hospitals and doctors to patients over the internet. Mediconnect, an organization aimed to develop community medicine in Pakistan, is creating a centralized database of all healthcare facilities in Pakistan with impartial ratings systems and instant online appointment bookings.

Health care facilities table

Health Manpower 2007‐08 2008‐09 2009‐10Registered doctors 128,093 133,984 139,555Registered dentists 8,215 9,013 9,822Registered nurses 62,651 65,387 69,313Population per Doctor

1245 1212 1183

Population per Dentist

19417 18,010 16914

Population per Bed 1544 1575 1592Source: Ministry of Health

Education facilitiesIt is widely acknowledged that education is amongst the single most important factor contributing topoverty alleviation. Education plays an overarching role and has a cross cutting impact on all aspects ofhuman life. It is a vital investment for human and economic development. Unfortunately, Pakistan’sstanding on this front has historically been poor. According to the latest Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2008‐09, theoverall literacy rate (age 10 years and above) is 57% (69% for male and 45% for female) compared to56% (69% for male and 44% for female) for 2007‐08. The data shows that literacy remains higher inurban areas (74%) than in rural areas (48%), and is more prevalent for men (69%) compared to women(45%). However, it is evident from the data that overall female literacy is rising over time, but progress isuneven across the provinces. The Poor quality of existing learning environment is evident from the fact that a large number ofschools are missing basic infrastructure i.e. 37.7% schools up to elementary level are without boundarywall, 33.9% without drinking water facility, 37% without latrines and around 60% schools are withoutelectricity. For higher accessibility of education particularly for girls in low income household and toenhance the enrolment, existing schools should be upgrade with the provision of necessaryinfrastructure to improve both output and quality of education.

Schools without Facilities Urban Rural TotalElectricity number 11,609 85,160 96,769Water number 2,179 52,817 54,996Latrine number 9,763 50,083 59,846Boundary Wall number 9,026 52,248 61,274Source: NEMIS 2008‐09 AEPAM, Ministry of Education, Islamabad.

Trends in Poverty in Rural & Urban areas:The decade of 1990s has also included in the analysis to put the current poverty and inequality trends in a longer perspective. Data presented in Table show that the 1990s has witnessed a gradual increase in poverty levels, from 26.8 percent in 1992/93 to 30.6 percent in1998-99. This rise in poverty was because of a six percentage points increase in rural povertywhile urban poverty declined during this period. The rising trends in overall poverty continueduntil 2000/01 period, but this time the increase was both in rural as well as urban areas. Inaddition to fall in economic growth, several factors are responsible for the rise in poverty in the1990s including political uncertainty, economic instability, and persistence of wide fiscal andcurrent account deficits. The inflows of foreign remittances, which are believed to be one of themajor factors for reducing poverty during the 1980s, also declined markedly during the 1990s.Bad weather conditions and severe droughts lowered the agriculture growth, and led to anincrease in rural poverty. Urban population was to some extent successful in protecting its wellbeinglevel during the 1990s.Table shows a sharp decline in poverty during the first half of the last decade, from 34.5percent in 2000/01 to 22.3 percent in 2005/06 - a decline of more than 12 percentage points in only five years3.The percentage of population living below the poverty line in rural areas hasdeclined from 39.3 percent in 2000/01 to 27 percent in 2005/06 while the corresponding declinein urban areas was from 22.7 percent to 13.1 percent, suggesting that sharp decline in rural areascould not narrow the rural-urban gap; rural poverty in 2005/06 was more than double the urbanpoverty.Poverty estimates may vary considerably when a different methodology is applied. For instance,the data presented in Table is based on the official poverty line methodology that uses theConsumer Price Index (CPI) for price adjustment. Using CPI for price adjustment, World Bank(2006a) shows a smaller decline in poverty from 34.4 percent in 2000/01 to 29.2 percent in2004/05 at the national level and from 39.1 percent to 34 percent for rural households. The fall in

overall poverty levels was only 5 percentage points between 2001 and 2005 according to theWorld Bank estimates.

TableUrban Rural Overall

1992-93 24.6 28.3 26.81996-97 22.6 33.1 29.81998-99 20.9 34.7 30.62000-01 22.7 39.3 34.52004-05 14.9 28.1 23.92005-06 13.1 27.0 22.32007-08 - - 29.9a

2008-09 - - 33.8b

2008-09 - - 36.1b

2008-09 - - 30-35c

Source: Economic Survey, Government of Pakistan, 2008-09.

ConclusionsPakistan is a developing economy, which has adopted Structural Adjustment Program(SAP) in the form of economic reforms initiated in early 1990s. Economic reformsrelated to privatization of state-owned assets, deregulation, confiscation of price controls,trade liberalization generally and financial reforms (especially to improve quality offinancial institutions) particularly. The objective of such reforms was to improve thewelfare of society but these reforms never fruited to every one in the country. Perhaps,fruits of economic reforms are eaten up by poor governance, lack of transparency ineconomic policies, high level of corruption in the country, high burden of internal andexternal debts, weak situation of law and order, and improper implementation of economic policies.