July 01, 2020 (MLN): When you think about your employment status, do you want to know the percentage distribution of employed persons in your occupation group? Many of us have no idea the employment status in major occupations.

You can find out where you stand and how much competition exists in different strata by analyzing the Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) 2018-19, released by PBS recently.

HIES is the tool to collect information and data on income, expenditure, consumption patterns, the level of saving, and other associated demographic characteristics of households to analyze the economic wellbeing of Pakistan.

Based on the new data set, the HIES 2018-19 focuses on the demographic differences among different income quintiles- from the poorest to the richest.

We examine some socio-economic factors to see where we fit in;

• the average number of earners per household by province and region
• the percentage distribution of earners by employment status

Ironically, it is prudent to mention that the working-age population in Pakistan is 10 years and above, though, to favor international comparability, the working-age population is defined as all persons aged 15 and older.

The report compared the key results of the 2018-19 data with the HIES data 2015-16.

The above table shows that the distribution of income earners across the total population disaggregated by Urban/Rural & provinces. We see that the average numbers of earner per household have slightly decreased from1.94 in 2015-16 to1.86 in 2018-19, while the numbers of earners in urban areas is 1.75 and rural areas is 1.92.

Meanwhile, the provincial comparison of the two surveys shows that the average number of earners has significantly increased in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan i.e. from 2.04 and 1.99 in 2015-16 to 2.08 and 2.14 in 2018-19 respectively, however, shown declining pattern in Punjab and Sindh.

Another important characteristic to study the pattern of employment in four different statuses; Employer, Self-Employed, Contributing family worker, and Employee is also highlighted.

The table, given below, shows that the paid employee remained the same with 54.80% being the highest followed by Self-employed 24.70% and contributing family helper with 17.39%. There is a slight decline in the percentage of employers from 0.90% in 2015-16 to 0.88% in 2018-19. However, a significant increase has been observed in the percentage of self-employed persons and the contributing family worker has decreased from 19.50% in 2015-16 from 17.39% in 2018-19, a report revealed.

Source: HIES 2018-19, PBS

The above graph illustrates the household earners disaggregated by occupation groups and employment status. Here, the occupational groups represent the nature of work usually undertaken by an individual. The breakup shows the highest percentage of household earners i.e. 21.09% lie in the category of the paid employees whose work nature is elementary.

Interestingly, the survey revealed that the second and third highest distribution of income earners with 12.87% and 12.27% belong to skilled agriculture and Fishery occupation but under the category of contributing family workers and self-employed (agriculture) respectively.  

Copyright Mettis Link News

35539