Consumption, culture, change.

READERS beware. This title could be misleading, but our changing CPI (consumer price index) basket, besides tracking inflation, says a lot about our culture. Our current CPI basket is based on the Family Budget Survey 2015-16, not published by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics that prefers to publish the Household Income and Expenditure Survey. With every Family Budget Survey, PBS selects a base year and a basket of consumption items, which remain fixed for several years until it performs the base-change exercise again. The old CPI basket was based on a survey done in 2007-08. Older baskets pertained to base years 2001-01, 1990-91, 1980-81, 1975-76, 1969-70 and 1959-60.

We can learn much about our culture simply by identifying which items exited the new basket and which items entered it. Leaving the basket does not necessarily mean an item became obsolete. It may just mean that it is no longer significant in terms of an average family's monthly expenditure. Similarly, a new entrant might be old but still significant in the base year. Some items might be new, eg bottled water which made its entry in 2015-16 and packaged milk in 2007-08. These items were being consumed earlier but did not have a discernible share in an average family's consumption. Note that humankind consumed water and milk while Adam and Eve were still in paradise. Does the future basket hold air bottles for breathing? No one knows, but mountaineers use it at high peaks and critical patients need continuous puffs of oxygen from a cylinder to stay alive.

Clothing differences between urban and rural areas are reflected in the dhoti's disappearance from the urban consumption basket of 2015-16; it is still present in the rural consumption basket. Dry cleaning charges for pants and coats have entered the urban basket, but obviously not the rural basket. Lipstick and nail polish existed in the 2007-08 basket and are included in the urban, but not rural, basket. Is that surprising? Gold, silver and artificial jewellery existed in the 2007-08 basket. Silver is no longer included in the rural basket, but the rest are there, and the urban basket still has all three items. Our rural ladies prefer either gold or gold-like jewellery to silver. Women's purses have entered the new baskets, rural as well as urban. One wonders why they were missing from the 2007-08 basket.

We can learn much about our culture simply by identifying the items in our new consumer baskets.

Home-stitched and...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT