There is an ongoing housing crisis in several European countries attributed to locals renting out to tourists, prompting anti-tourism protests in Spain and Portugal, while in Pakistan all administrations, have colluded with the influential real estate sector by extending fiscal and monetary incentives including amnesty schemes with the stated objective of easing the housing shortage, promote growth (as this sector jumpstarts output of other sectors) while generating employment opportunities.

The status quo PML-N supplemented this elitist policy first by bestowing 5- to 10-marla government land (though it was never revealed how much land was given away and whether the recipients were low-grade government employees rather than the vulnerable or disenfranchised); and, more recently, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his niece Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz used the taxpayers’ money to build low-cost housing (again the target beneficiaries are not known).

A study on the 2017 census by Arif Hasan with Hamza Arif titled Pakistan: the causes and repercussions of the housing crisis highlighted the prevalence of three factors. First, urban housing demand is 350,000 units with 217,000 for lower-income groups, 87,500 for lower-middle income groups, and the remaining 10 per cent for higher and upper middle-income groups.

Formal supply per year is 150,000 units. Second, unmet demand is met through two types of informal settlements – occupation and subdivision of government land (katchi abadis) and informal subdivision of agricultural land on the periphery of urban settlements with provincial governments promoting regularisation and possible improvement of informal settlements.

During the last two decades, demand is increasingly being met by densification of existing low and lower middle income settlements. And finally, the nexus between the politicians (inclusive of the senior leadership of all the three major national political parties) and the developers accounts for a rising number of gated communities (elite and middle classes).

There is overwhelming evidence that the real estate sector is a major contributor to the parallel black money which accounts for available land/housing beyond the income of even the middle classes and explains why the ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme insists on taxing the real estate sector appropriately.

Be that as it may, the Seventh Population and Housing Census 2023, the first-ever digital census was carried out by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and reported 38,292,556 households in 2023 with, on average, six members per family though some provinces registered a higher rate, giving a total population of 230 million people. The actual population in 2023 was calculated at around 241 million people.

The Table from the census document shows the result of house ownership in each province, rented houses (inclusive of residence provided by government and private employers in the 2017 census but with no more than 2 percent as determined by the 2023 census which was reported as others). The census does not differentiate between katcha houses and others.

Two observations on the table are as follows. First, 82 percent of all households in this country own their houses – this of course does not take account of the available amenities notably only 66 percent of total households have access to water inside their homes, and 60.4 percent have households with kitchen facilities (though the facilities vary markedly).

And second, 90 percent of those residents in Balochistan own their homes (an enviable percentage unless one factors in that the housing units that provide water inside the house is only 41 percent in Balochistan against 71 percent in Punjab, 64 percent in Sindh and 65 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). Around 84 percent of those residents in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa own their own homes, and the percentage in Sindh is much lower at 76 percent.

One factor in higher homeownership in Balochistan may be due to the fact that the province not only has the largest percentage of population living in rural areas (where the housing available is rudimentary) but the province witnessed a rise in the percentage resident in rural areas in 2023 census compared to the 2017 census (60 percent against the current 69 percent). Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also witnessed a rise in rural population, though it was marginal – from 83 percent in 2017 to 84 percent in 2023 census.

Sindh and Punjab both witnessed a percentage decline of population in rural areas – from 48 to 46 percent between the two censuses in Sindh and from 63 to 59 percent in Punjab.

Data released by the PBS is frequently criticized by independent economists, and therefore it is important to ascertain the methodology used to collect it and equally importantly whether a post enumeration survey was carried out to reconfirm the findings.

The data collection for the digital census 2023 as per the report “began with the deployment of a web portal for self-enumeration on 20” February, 2023…. Around 2,600,000 individuals submitted their data through the self-enumeration portal till its closing date on 10th March, 2023.

The process of listing houses and structures took place between 1st — 10th March, 2023, while the census field enumeration began on 12th March, 2023, with an initial completion date of 4th April, 2023.” There are always pitfalls in data reliant on self-enumeration with an additional element of an experimenter’s bias.

Post Enumeration Survey (PES) of Digital Census 2023 was reportedly conducted from 8th to 19th July, 2023, and a sample of 2500 Enumeration Blocks was selected from 48 administrative districts (overall level) with relative margin of error of 1.1%.

The sample was selected using stratified random sampling where strata within provinces were made on the basis of similar characteristics like growth rates, population, etc.

While one can support the principle behind undertaking PES yet one wonders if 10 days are sufficient for the exercise to be carried out countrywide.

Housing crisis is not limited to developing countries like Pakistan and migration, refugees and rentals to tourists are causing housing shortages with the UN Habitat stating that the world needs 96,000 affordable houses each day to house the 3 billion who would need housing by 2030.

To conclude, in Pakistan one would urge the federal and provincial governments to allocate low-cost housing under construction as well as the housing available to government employees to the vulnerable. As Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) periodically reassesses the eligibility of beneficiaries, it must be the preferred mechanism for not only extending all subsidies (as per an IMF condition) but also low-cost housing.

Published in berecorder By Anjum Ibrahim, 02 June 2025