POVERTY IN PAKISTAN AFTER

COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Social Research
Prepared by:
Aiyesha Hanif-051
Hazique Anwar-057
Naba Sajjad-201
Muhammad Arham-156
Course Coordinator: Sir Nadil Shah

Document compiled by:

Aiyesha Hanif
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Acknowledgment: 2

2. Introduction: 3

poverty in Pakistan after Covid-19 Pandemic: 3

Statistics: 3

Causes: 4

3. Literature Review: 6

4. Method: 10

5. Discussion: 12

6. Conclusion: 14
 1. ACKNOWLEDGMENT:

First and foremost, all Praises and thanks belong to Almighty Allah for His
countless blessings on us throughout the project.
Then we would like to express our deep and sincere gratitude to our teacher, Sir
Nadil Shah for giving us the golden opportunity to perform social research on
the main causes of our country and it really helped us a lot in developing our
skills.
I would also like to show my gratitude to all those who have helped me to put
these ideas, well above the level of simplicity and into something concrete.
2. INTRODUCTION:
Poverty is a condition in which a person or community lacks the financial
resources and essentials for a minimum standard of living. Poverty is a
phenomenon when a person’s income level is so low that they are unable to
meet basic human needs.

POVERTY IN PAKISTAN AFTER COVID-19 PANDEMIC:

In Pakistan, 29.5% of the population lives below the national poverty line. In
2020, this translated into 55 million people. In Pakistan, the proportion of
employed population below $1.90 purchasing power a day in 2019 is 2.3%.
The current coronavirus pandemic has caused poverty to spread at an
immensely rapid pace.

Major developing and underdeveloped countries are facing negative GDP

growth and some are even on the verge of bankruptcy due to business
shutdown and high unemployment eventually leading to high poverty. The
rate of poverty after Covid-19 has risen in every country whether developed,
developing or under developed.

Statistics:

According to the World Bank, as many as 150 million people will be

extremely poor by 2021. The covid-19 alone has pushed an additional 88
million to 115 million people into extreme poverty this year.

Before covid-19, the poverty rate was expected to drop to 7.9% in 2020 but
now the case has been the complete opposite as an additional 1.4% of the
world’s population will fall into extreme poverty. Before the coronavirus
pandemic, Pakistan’s GDP growth was around 5.8%; now it is 0.98% and it
is projected to be in negative figures in the upcoming months due to global
pandemic and recession in the economy. Some industries have faced its
deepest ever crisis and one of them is the aviation industry which has more
than 90% of the global fleet grounded due to travel restrictions.

The global commodity prices have dropped 20.4% in March 2020. The
global trade for the second quarter dropped by 27% as compared with the
same quarter last year. The tourism industry is forecasted to fall this year by
58% to 78%. These statistics show that the corona virus has caused a major
recession all around the world and every industry has faced its impact.

CAUSES:
Due to this pandemic, the trade has halted, this has resulted in a major loss
for the economy. Less trade between countries has caused a global recession
in the world economy and most countries that have an import based
economy are deprived of their country’s basic necessity which has
eventually caused the population of both the countries to suffer a major
financial loss. Another cause of increase in poverty is the amount of
businesses shut down. Around 18% of the small and medium enterprise
businesses shut down due to covid-19 pandemic causing a major rise in
unemployment and poverty. Since in Pakistan SME’s contribute a major
part in the country’s GDP, the country is facing an economic downturn.

Companies are adopting downsizing strategies which has forced more people
below the poverty line. As the corona virus has increased unemployment, it
has also made resources expensive and out of reach for a common
individual.

Due to lack of supply of various resources, the businesses are demanding

high prices as the demand for resources is rising due to the pandemic;
causing more people to get deprived of their basic necessities.
 Another cause of people falling below poverty is the expensive medication
which a common individual is unable to afford in these difficult times.

3. LITERATURE REVIEW:

A writing survey epitomizes a problem because a compelling one can't be

directed except if a difficult articulation is set up (Ibn-Mohammed, 2017).
However, a writing search assumes a fundamental part of building up many
exploration issues. In this paper, the methodology taken to conquer this problem
includes looking and exploring the current writing in the particular region of
study (for example effects of COVID-19 on worldwide economy and
environments with regards to CE). This was utilized to build up the hypothetical
system from which the current examination arises and embracing this to set up a
calculated structure which at that point turns into the premise of the current
audit. The paper receives the basic writing survey (CLR) approach given that it
involves the evaluation, study, and syncretization of significant writing
concerning the theme under scrutiny in a way that encourages the development
of new hypothetical systems and points of view from a wide exhibit of various
fields (Snyder, 2019). CLR experiences a characteristic shortcoming as far as
subjectivity towards writing determination (Snyder, 2019), provoking Grant and
Booth (2009) to present that orderly writing survey (SLR) could moderate this
inclination given its exacting measures in writing choice that encourages a
definite examination of a particular line of examination. Notwithstanding,
various creators (Morrison et al., 2012; Paez, 2017) have revealed that SLR
doesn't take into consideration compelling amalgamation of scholastic and dim
writing which are not listed in famous scholarly web crawlers like Google
Scholar, Web-of-Science, and Scopus. The current survey investigates the
effects of COVID-19 on the worldwide economy and environments and open
doors for roundabout economy methodologies, as opposed to examining a
particular part of the pandemic. All things considered, embracing a CLR
approach is supported in understanding the objective of the paper as it takes into
consideration the incorporation of a wide scope of points of view and
hypothetical underpinnings from various sources (Greenhalgh et al., 2018;
Snyder, 2019).

Considering the abovementioned, this paper utilized authentic information

comprising of diary articles, archived news in the media, master reports,
government and important partners' arrangement records, distributed master
meetings, and strategy input writing that are pertinent to COVID-19 and the
idea of CE. To distinguish the applicable chronicled information, we zeroed in
on a few commonsense methods of writing looking through utilizing fitting
watchwords that are pertinent to this work including sway (positive and
negative) of COVID-19, roundabout economy, financial strength,
supportability, store network flexibility, environmental change, and so on In the
wake of recognizing articles and significant records, their substance were
inspected to decide incorporations and rejections dependent on their importance
to the subject under scrutiny. Thoughts created from perusing the subsequent
papers from the hunt were then used to build up a hypothetical structure and an
examination issue proclamation, which frames the reason for the CLR. The
effect examination for the investigation was educated by the I=P×A×T model
whereby the "sway" (I) of any gathering or nation on the climate is a component
of the connection of its populace size (P), per capita opulence (A),
communicated regarding genuine per capita GDP, as a legitimate estimate of the
accessibility of products and ventures and innovation (T) associated with
supporting every unit of utilization.
Past pandemics have likewise had critical, though more modest, financial
effects. Mama et al. (2020) discover genuine GDP fell by 2.6% on normal
across 210 nations during episodes of sickness and stayed 3.0% underneath pre-
stun levels 5 years after the fact. Barro et al. (2020), utilizing an example of 42
nations, report much bigger GDP impacts for Spanish influenza. Furceri et al
(2020) and De Haan and Sturm (2017) show that emergencies compound
imbalance by discouraging work for those generally powerless, for example, the
less talented and youngsters. This expands the Gini coefficient, lifting the pay
portions of those in higher deciles and bringing the business down to populace
proportion for the less taught. Taking a gander at 175 nations more than 1961–
2017, Furceri et al (2020) gauge increments to the pre-stun Gini of somewhere
in the range of 0.75 and 1.25% 5 years after the pandemic.

Coronavirus has as of now seriously upset the work supply and total interest of
most influenced nations (Alfaro et al. 2020; Baker et al. 2020; Bartik et al.
2020; Fetzer et al. 2020; Carvalho et al. 2020). An expected 1.25 billion
specialists, almost 40% of the worldwide labor force, face the high danger of
uprooting from the pandemic (ILO 2020b). The decrease in working hours
universally is as of now comparable to the deficiency of 195 million all-day
occupations (ILO 2020b). In the only us, 20 million positions were supposedly
lost by early April (Furceri et al 2020). The month-to-month sway on positions
is undeniably more extreme than past significant plunges (Hoynes et al. 2012;
Christiano et al. 2015; Coibion et al. 2020).

However, these work impacts from COVID-19 are lopsided inside and across
nations (Adams-Prassl et al. 2020). Some 18% (US) and 15% (UK) of people in
an example of 4000 respondents Footnote1 detailed as of late having lost their
positions due to the Covid flare-up toward the beginning of April 2020,
contrasted with just 5% in Germany (Adams-Prassl et al. 2020). Across nations,
expanded capacity to telecommute and having a perpetual, salaried agreement
fundamentally diminished the likelihood of employment misfortune (see
likewise Dingel and Neiman 2020; Adams-Prassl et al. 2020). Genuine and
potential teleworking rates shift broadly, from around a fourth of the labor force
in Mexico, Turkey, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Argentina, and Uruguay,
ascending to 34% in the US and over 40% in the UK and Sweden (Dingel and
Neiman 2020; Boeri et al. 2020; Foschiatti and Gasparini 2020). This rate is
around only 13% across 10 agricultural nations including Argentina. Chile,
China, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, among others (ILO
approaching).

In the US and UK, ladies and laborers without an advanced education are up to
8% bound to have just lost their positions. In the US (UK), ladies can do 42%
(41%) of their assignments from home, contrasted with 53% (46%) for men
(Adams-Prassl et al. 2020).
 4. METHOD:

We have chosen the topic Poverty because it has affected the economy as a
whole. Global crisis happened, which badly disturbed the whole world. People
got fired from their jobs, expenditure increases and no source of income left.
The whole nation faced a lot of downfalls in this pandemic.

We started off with the secondary research and for that we reviewed two
Research papers and from that we have terminated that the economy has
decreased to 2.8% by 2020 within the underdeveloped countries and the scale
for this in developed countries is equivalent to -12.5% with the third quarter.

The Covid-19 pandemic has adversely affected the Sustainable Development

Goal (SDGs) of ending poverty by 2030.

According to Latvia, the fundamentals of poverty are the dependency created

for living. One cannot afford his way of living, his food and necessities
resulting in the rude behavior and insult by others, who help them in need.

The second category of poverty is abject poverty where people are deprived of
basic human rights i-e Food, clothing and shelter. These are the emergency
conditions caused by socio-economical declined in the country as like during
the times of COVID-19.
According to the research, 1.4 million are dealing with poverty residing in under
developed countries (IFADs, 2011) and it can increase to 42-580 million in
recent years.

Even after a dynamic era, the vaccine for COVID-19 has not been found. It is
the first time that no cure is said to be found for a tiny virus that is spreading in
microseconds causing hundreds and thousands of deaths per day.

In a nutshell, it is always the underprivileged and under developed countries

that suffer from such diseases and circumstances. The authorities, the
Governing bodies neglect the poor which leads to deaths more by hunger than
by famine.

We then opted for an interview with Mrs. Mehmooda Gul, a salon owner who
was badly affected by the Covid. Purpose of this interview was to see how
Covid impacted individual rather than its impact on the whole nation.
 5. DISCUSSION:

Mrs. Mehmooda Gul has been running a home-based beauty salon since 2018.
The covid-19 has brought a fatalistic effect in her life and she has had to face a
lot of struggles. She keeps working day and night just to fulfill the basic needs.

For our primary research, we asked her a few questions related to the loss that
she faced in this Covid-19 pandemic through WhatsApp and she was sweet
enough to take out some time for us and answered all our queries.

Some Questions and Answers:

1) What is the level of your business?

Answer: The level of my income is quite good. I own a home-based salon - not
a commercial one. I have been working only on appointments since the start of
the business..

2) Pre Covid situation: clients and average earnings

 Answer: Working through appointments made my clientele grow. I used to
have clients daily and that too for the whole week. Before Covid, I used to
have an average earning of 30k per month.

3) The immediate effect of Covid:

- Business: The pandemic did affect my business a lot. In the beginning,
Salons were fully closed as per the Government orders. I didn’t take a
single client at my home because I was afraid for my family.
-
Supplies: The second big problem that I had to face was the loss in my
investment, since the salon was fully closed for the whole 4,5 months
many of the beauty products that I have purchased got ruined.

- Household: we had drastic effects on day-to-day life too. we had to cut

our expenses, as the only source of my income was shut - my salo. we
were barely surviving on what little savings I had.

4) What time span was the worst?

Well, the whole period of lockdown was the worst time for me and my family.
We usually earn 2 times more in Ramadan than we used to earn on a daily basis.
But I didn’t work for the whole month for the safe side keeping in mind the
SOP’S and due to which I suffered a lot and had to face a lot of struggles.
however, as I have returned to work again - I find the recovery phase more
difficult.

5) What was the backup source of income?

None, we were surviving only on the little saving I had.

6) The situation as of now:

 The situation is quite depressing; the clientele has shrunk, and the price
hike of products is unaffordable.

7) Future plans:
There is a lot of uncertainty about the future in the market. no one knows what
is going to happen next when everything will be shut gain. hence, at the
moment, no long term plans. just focusing on surviving this crisis

Figure 1: Interview of the Salon owner Ms.Mehmooda

Gul
 6. CONCLUSION:
The pandemic has stricken a strong blow. This blow is not limited to individuals
or a single economy but has impacted globally. not only has this pandemic
pushed us 10 years back but has made the future very hazy.

Pakistan being a developing country has had to face the consequences most.
while companies ran out of business people were barely able to afford a three
times meal.

Nevertheless, we as a nation have been more business oriented and this is why
the impact was not as devastating at an economic point of you. Another positive
aspect was that of our innate brotherhood which helped the poor afloat during
these tough times.

While this pandemic created a dent to the future, there is still hope for a safer
world given that all the measures are taken and each individual takes
responsibility of those that are under privileged.

References:
 Barro, R., Ursua, J., & Weng, J. (2020). Coronavirus Meets the Great
Influenza Pandemic. VoxEU. org, 20.

Deb, P., Furceri, D., Ostry, J. D., & Tawk, N. (2020). The economic
effects of Covid-19 containment measures.

Links

https://www.nber.org/papers/w27729

https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-
paper/PDF/wp2020-43.pdf