ISLAMABAD: Gallup Pakistan, as part of its Big Data Analysis initiative, conducted a study on the Pakistan National Census 2017 that provides great insights into the complete picture of the population and proves to be vital for policymakers as well as the public.
According to its study on population by mother tongue and other criterion as per census year 2017, Urdu was the mother tongue of 7% of Pakistanis in 2017.
As compared with 1998 census, the native speakers of Punjabi had decreased significantly from 44% of the population claiming it as their mother tongue in 1998 to 39% in 2017, a decrease of 5% over the course of two decades.
Provincial Breakdown: Native Punjabi speaking population is disproportionately less than the Punjab province’s population; Punjab’s share is 55% of the total population while 39% of the residents claimed Punjabi to be their mother tongue in 2017.
The 36% of rural Pakistanis claimed Punjabi to be their mother tongue in 2017 while as compared with 1998 census, over the course of two decades in the rural areas of Pakistan, the proportion of people who claimed Punjabi to be their mother tongue decreased by 7% from 43% in 1998 to 36% in 2017.
The proportion for native Pashto speakers increased by 4% from 18% in 1998 to 22% in 2017. The 17% of the urban population in Pakistan claims that their mother tongue is Urdu.
A compared with 1998 census, Native Sindhi speaking population witnessed a 3% increase in urban areas. Sindhi was the mother tongue of 9% of the urban residents in 1998 while the figure increased to 12% in 2017.
Persons Living Abroad
The study says that 5,154,218 Pakistani nationals were reported to be living abroad in 2017. Nearly 74.06% of the Pakistani nationals living abroad are males while Pakistani citizens from rural areas 63.45% as compared to urban areas 36.55% were living abroad in 2017.
More than half of the people living abroad hail from Punjab 55.5% followed by Sindh 19.7%, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 18.1%, Balochistan 3%, FATA 2.4% and Islamabad 1.3%.
Homeless Population AS PER Census Year 2017
The study says that 38,415 Pakistani nationals were reported to be homeless in 2017. About 63.38% of the Pakistani homeless population consists of males.
Proportion of homeless population in rural areas (58.8%) is more as compared to urban areas (41.2%). Punjab (44.1%) has the highest proportion of homeless people followed by Sindh (38.3%), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (11.3%), Balochistan (4.9%), FATA (0.7%) and Islamabad (0.6%).
One-third (34%) of the homeless people in Pakistan fall between the age group of 15 to 34 years. One quarter (27.4%) of the homeless population have previously been employed. More than half (58.82%) of the people living without a shelter are unmarried.
The 6th Population and Housing Census of Pakistan was undertaken throughout the country from 15th March to 24th May 2017. For this purpose, the country was delimited into manageable census areas i.e., Blocks, Circles, Charges and Districts. The whole exercise was successfully completed by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) through deployment of field staff in all the census areas with strong support from the Provincial Government Departments and the Armed Forces of Pakistan.