Socio Economic Indicator Of South Asian Countries

The socio economy indicate the living standards of people in any country or any region. It helps the states to focus on the weaknesses and strength of its region and it also helps in policy formulation. South Asia as a region is of utmost important and has been emerged as a fastest growing economy of the world. South Asia as a whole shares a common history of colonization under Britishers. After independence, these countries were left poor with high mortality rate among every section of the population with low per capita income, low infrastructure, and low level of education etc.

And we know that every development is measured by some kind of indicator and these indicators also measures the quantitative and qualitative change of population. Some indicators are given below:

Demographic indicators such as population size its growth composition etc. Health indicators such as life expectancy, mortality rate, birth rate, sanitation etc. Education indicators such as adult literacy, education rate in primary,secondary and higher education, and school expectancy etc.

Housing indicators such as availability of house or human settlement, access to electricity etc. Environment indicators like carbon emission and pollution rate. Gross domestic product growth rate and the contribution of primary secondary and tertiary sector.

DEMOGRAPHIC INDICATORS

These indicators are very important because most of the time other indicators are affected by these demographic indicators. There are total eight countries in South Asia which are India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives among which India is the most populous country of this region as well as 2nd largest populous country.

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This region alone hold around 26% of world population. India ha a population of 1.06 billion and Bangladesh’s population is 160 million, Pakistan population is 180 million, the population of Bhutan is 7.7 million which is 2nd lowest population state in the region after Maldives. The countries has done efforts to reduce the growth of population through various policies and programs. In this education also plays a very important role and the population growth has been reduced in each state from 1995 to 2015 and average being around 1.5% from 2.365% the only exception being Sri Lanka whose population growth was 0.9% in 1995 and it reduced to 0.8% in 2010 but again increased to 0.9%. This region has average elderly age around 5% of its total population and between the age group of 0-14 years the region has around 31% of its total population in 2015 from 41% in 1995.

HEALTH INDICATORS

There is a saying that if wealth is gone nothing is gone but if Health is gone something is gone. Health determines not only the person who are dependent but also contributes in growth of any country. However South Asian region has worked on health and has reduced its death rate figure from an average of 9.5 per 1000 people to 5.85 per 1000 people from 1995 to 2015 but there is long way to go. The average health expenditure of its GDP in percentage is around 6% for this region highest being Afghanistan @ 9.1% and Maldives at 7.9%. the average Life expectancy has increased from 60.85 to 68.4 from 1995 to 2015 where the highest life expectancy is in Maldives at 76.2 years followed by Sri Lanka at 74.3 years.

EDUCATION INDICATORS

Education is very important not only to make people aware of their rights but also for the growth of an individual and a society as a whole. Education plays an important role in any country’s economy . When people are skilled they not only help in greasing the wheels of economy but also take towards development. However in South Asia we can see a good percentage of student enrolment in primary education but this enrolment decreases when we go to secondary or higher education. In Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka the student enrolment is 90.8%, 87.2%, 91.6%, 97.8%(2010),72.6%(20005), 74.7%, 94.9% in 2015. This shows that Governments are taking various steps to increase students enrolment in primary education like India’s Mid day meal programme. However in secondary education the enrolment decreases to 46.3% for Bhutan, 52.1% for Bangladesh and 36.9% (2005) for Maldives, 50.5% for Nepal and only country showing a good sign is Sri Lanka at 84.1%. This data was for both sexes combined but when we segregate we can find differences among male and female enrolment ratio and due to patriarchal society and social stigma still grasping this region and various other factor female enrolment will be less than male enrolment.

HOUSING INDICATORS

The access to electricity in South Asia is remarkable as this region is continuing to increase the rich to electricity. On an average South Asia has 65.175% as of 2015 access to electricity highest being Nepal with 99.99% and Pakistan with 91.4%. The people of Urban population residing in slums are 70.8% for Bangladesh , 34.7% for India, 67.3% in Nepal and 47.5% in Pakistan. On an average around 30% of South Asian population resides in Urban area. This figure is increasing day by day and it shows that with the change is working pattern and better quality of life people are settling in urban areas leaving their rural life.