Suchergebnisse

Education has positive links with economic development as it
raises the productivity of the work force. Beside private rates of
returns, the social returns of education are also high. Because of the
gains to society, education is subsidised in many countries. Pakistan,
where only 2.5 percent of the GDP is spent on education, provides
subsidised education in the form of a public school system.1 Government
pays for the major expenditures such as construction of infrastructure
for education and salaries to the teaching and related staff. Household
cost is kept low to attract more people to send their children to
schools. Therefore only a nominal tuition fee is being charged for
attending these schools.

The paper explores the role of human and non-human capital
factors in determining the earnings of workers in Pakistan. The Labour
Force Survey data 1993-94, which provides detailed information about
workers, has been used for this analysis. Ordinary least squares
estimation technique has been utilised for the analysis. The analysis is
carried out separately for male and female workers. It is found that in
human capital variables, education plays a dominant role in wage
determination. In non-human capital factors, occupation and size of the
establishments are found to be relevant variables. Other important
variables include regional location and technical training. The sample
selection bias has been observed for female workers whereas no problem
has been observed for male workers, and the bias has been corrected by
using the Heckman procedure, though both corrected and uncorrected
results are reported. Important conclusions and policy implications are
discussed at the end.

The earnings of workers play important role in the well-beings
of households' as they account for the largest proportion of total
household income. If earnings of workers are distributed unevenly, they
contribute significantly to the inequality in the household earnings. It
may not be a cause of serious concern if income inequality grows and
income of the workers also grows throughout the population and the
position of the bottom segment improves. It is however serious when gap
between rich and poor increases by worsening the position of poor. To
reduce the household income inequality it is therefore important to
focus on the distribution of personal earnings and frame a policy. There
are many cause of inequality in personal earnings. As workers income
rises at varying rates, it may reflect the decision of household of
their investment in human capital and decisions to acquire skills. The
factors like education, occupation, gender, regional location, sector of
employment, and non-market forces such as discrimination may also play a
significant role in the distribution of earnings.

Generally ageing of population is defined as the relative
increase in the number of elderly. This process is the result of
declining fertility and increasing life expectancy of elderly
population. In today's Pakistan, fertility has started declining and
life expectancy of elderlies has been increasing and it is expected that
in future both these processes will gain momentum, resulting into many
fold increase in the population of elderly people [Afzal (1999); Sathar
and Casterline (1998)]. These developments are expected to have adverse
effects on Pakistan's economy as support and welfare of elderly people
will require additional allocation of resources. That is more so because
traditionally welfare and socio-economic needs of elderly people
remained the responsibility of their children especially the sons.
However, the traditional extended/joint family system is fast breaking
down and nuclear type of family set up is becoming more common rendering
the elderly people helpless [Ali (2000)]. Moreover, in view of an
increase in the incidence of poverty in Pakistan, intra-house resource
distribution is also becoming scarce leading to a scenario where only
productive members are the chief beneficiaries [Qureshi and Arif,
(2001)].

Saving, the fraction of national income that is not spent on
current consumption, has long been widely regarded as a key factor in
economic growth.1 The saving rate along with the incremental
capital-output ratio determine the growth rate of the economy in the
Harrod-Domar Model framework. The critical role of saving in capital
accumulation and economic development is also recognised in the
"two-gap" and classical growth models. For capital accumulation to
result in sustained growth, it must be supported by adequate
domestic/national savings. This has been clearly demonstrated by the
extra-ordinary performance of the East Asian economies. While there have
been brief periods of significant inflow of external financial resources
to some developing countries in the past, foreign savings cannot be
expected to provide a sustainable basis for financing domestic
investment. Raising' national saving rate is particularly essential to
developing countries with a heavy debt service burden and limited
capacity to obtain loans in foreign capital markets. The 1995 Mexican
crisis showed, among other things, that low domestic savings can raise
the probability of sudden capital outflows, and sharpen their negative
consequences. In a financially integrated world, high national/domestic
savings contribute to macro economic stability which is itself a
powerful growth factor. Indeed, any macro economic adjustment programmes
oriented to the resumption of long-run growth invariably emphasise the
need to expand domestic savings.

Death is inevitable. However, efforts have always been made to
delay it. Due to the advancement in medical science, the developed
countries have succeeded in achieving a considerable increase in the
life expectancy of the people. On the other hand, the developing
countries are striving hard to follow the same trend. but with lesser
success. Constrained by limited resources, health planners have been
compelled to set priorities towards the elimination of widespread fatal
diseases. The cause specific death rates can provide a measure of the
most widely prevalent diseases in the region. An age and cause specific
death rate, would give a more refined measure of the same. However, in
order to measure the gain in life expectancy by elimination of specific
causes of death, the use of the life table technique would be an
appropriate one. For example, if 'Malaria' is the largest killer in a
region. the application of this technique could provide us with added
years of life resulting from the elimination of Malaria. The present
study is an attempt to examine the gains in life expectancy at birth as
well as for other broad age groups by eliminating specified causes of
death.