Pakistan's GDP growth higher than South Asia.

Fun fact: between 1960 and 1990, Pakistan's GDP growth was higher than that of South Asia for all but just five years. In the last 30 years, however, it has been higher in only two annual readings, according to World Bank data. A remarkable reversal for a country that posted its highest population growth rate in the 1980s, suggesting that greater economic activity would be needed to maintain the same standard of living.

The time-period division has not been made to imply that a U-turn was made precisely in the 1990s, but to mark a turnaround that gradually saw Pakistan go from vying to be a South Asian powerhouse to a country now riddled with crises.

Similarly, choosing the GDP measure as a yardstick is meant to convey that a faster-growing population needed higher growth to accommodate the incoming job-seekers that would pile up each year.

It is widely believed that Pakistan now needs an economic growth rate of over 7 percent to ensure its unemployment doesn't increase faster. Just for context - what we saw in 2019-2020 was a contraction, meaning a move in the opposite direction. And no, Covid-19 is not to blame. Groundwork for economic contraction had been laid much before, and Covid-19 just ensured we were thrown into the pit, rather than falling into it.

Coming back to the original argument, one could argue that the rest...

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