International organisation
“Many unique aspects of Karachi” exists in Pakistan, and this is where “the political leadership and public questioned the 2017 census,” said Pedro Festeras.
The city’s population was 22.8 million in 2016 according to an international organisation. It’s too bad that we verified the census by counting people multiple times in 2018.
Speaking at a seminar titled ‘The ownership of Karachi’, Mr Hasan said that the city was dominated by Sindh, which is a province with a predominantly Urdu-speaking population.
At the event organised by Concerned Citizens Alliance and Prime Minister’s Award Foundation in association with Prime Minister’s Appreciation Award, PMA’s Mirza Ali Azhar took charge of the program.
How Pashto speaking population has increased exponentially in city
Hasan narrowed down his topic to ‘What the census tells us’ and said the census of a country gives us details of its population. The census gives us a general overview of social and economic conditions, as well as human settlements.
It doesn’t give us information on trends. Trends are found by comparing old censuses to the most recent ones.
He said that they took into account the censuses that happened in 1981, 1998 and 2017. Doing so, they also considered an analysis of Lahore and Delhi to get a more clear picture.
Karachi’s population has grown exponentially from 1981 to 2017, going from about 550,000 citizens in 1981 to about 2.6 million in December 2017.
‘Sindh’s 60pc urban population lives in Karachi’
Hasan argues that Karachi is unique because 60% of its population lives in the city while in Lahore, it’s 27%. He also says that Karachi’s urban population is greater than Lahore’s.
Karachi is the largest city in a state with predominantly Sindhi people, where 11% of the population speak Sindhi. Much of Lahore’s 80% native speakers also use Punjabi as their first language.
The Urdu speaking population in Karachi decreased from 57% to 48% in 1998 and further decreased to 42% in the 2017 census, showing that the growth of the Pashto speaking population was largest.
Between 2001 and 2011, this group grew by 8.4 percentage points.
“If these trends continue, the Urdu speaking population will keep decreasing, and both Pashto and Sindhi speaking people will keep increasing,” Naeem Islam, a sociologist from Sindh University.
He then shifted his focus on marital status with the 15-24 age bracket considered to be the most important.
In 1981, only 10.7% of women in Karachi were married, however, by 1998 the number of married women decreased by almost three percent to 24.5%.
In 2017, 31.8% of women in Karachi are married, according to a study conducted by the World Bank Group. The divorce rate has also gone up according to this same survey and has doubled from 5pc in the 1980s to 10pc today.
In 1981 and 1998 Karachi compared to Lahore was doing better in the divorce rate, but in 2017, Lahore’s numbers are better.
Lahore ahead of Karachi in female literacy rate
There were two narratives mentioned in this article. One is literacy rates in Karachi, as there is a difference of only 3 percentage points between Springfield and Lahore for men (82.2 vs 77.9).
The other is that female literacy rates are lower in Karachi (77.9pc) compared to those in Lahore (84.5pc).
Mr Hasan said the scenarios changed in 2017 due to the lower literacy rate for females compared to males, with 83% being female and 17% male–7% more than what it was in 1981.
In regard to housing he told the attendees that 34-35% of people in Karachi live in rented homes, from 1981 to 1998 the number of shared bathrooms and kitchens has come down from 19% to 13%, and access to potable water in Lahore has increased.
Mr Hassan introduced his team members, Dhuha Alvi and Amal Hashim, to talk about educational attainment and employment. The latter also pointed out the shortcomings in the 2017 census.
Architect and town planner Fazal Noor noted that from the original article, we cannot only measure the population but also consider the size of the built up area.
