employment age, and then entering the reproductive cycle with attitude, as well as their
demands on physical and institutional resources, defies the capacity of the state to even
conceptualize these problems, let alone devise strategies for their amelioration.
To some extent, the descent to Malthusian mayhem is a product of extreme economic
inequalities, combined with major inequities in political economy. Again, these symptoms are
shared with other developing countries, but they remain part of the crisis of social economy that
Pakistan has been encountering. The historic low level of expenditures on human development
and on the social sector, combined with political exclusion and the absence of redistributive
mechanisms as well as old age and unemployment benefits, has induced the poor to seek
security in number of children. With declines in the death rate and generally improved food
security, combined with the weak controls over the creation of child labour, deciding the
generational resource transfers from child to parent. There is a rationale that poor people want
to have large families. The state has proclaimed on paper a prioritization for ‘poverty alleviation’
strategies, but these appear more for the facilitation of funding by the international donor
community; and the bulk of resources get absorbed by political intermediaries and the middle
class salariat rather than reaching the poor. Also, patterns experienced in the past, especially in
the 1960s, the high growth actually increased income inequalities, appear to have reemerged.
The shift to indirect taxes, and relief from wealth tax, has helped upper income groups.
Inflationary trends in basic commodities have also affected the poor. The relative numbers
under the ‘poverty level’ remains contentious, with the administration claiming a poverty
reduction towards 25%, and analysts putting this figure closer to 35%. But such a level is itself
arbitrary: clearly the great majority of Pakistan’s population suffers from serious to severe
economic deprivation.
Perhaps the most major reform under the Musharraf regime has been the setting up of a local
government system. This is clearly the most ambitious and innovative in South Asia. And to a
large extent its success is challenged by the scale of the transition that is entailed. A three tier
system has been introduced, at the level of the district, sub-district tahsil and municipal
authority, and local union councils. Elections to non-executive positions are on a non-party
basis, while the elections of the district mayor, or nazim, are indirect. This has led to allegations
that the system was devised to reduce the hold of political organizations on local politics, and
counter the influence of politicians elected to the provincial and national legislatures. Another
critique has been that the power of the bureaucracy has been hobbled, by removing the judicial
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