Literacy in Pakistan determined by where you are in the income ladder !

On average, moving from the poorest to the richest quintile is associated with nearly a 38-point increase in literacy—a stark confirmation that education attainment in Pakistan is strongly income-linked, with gender and geography compounding the gap.

This single visual below shows four divides at once:

Income
Gender
Urban–rural
Their interaction

What the chart makes unmistakable

Income dominates everything

Across all four groups, literacy rises steadily with income.
Even rural females rise from 28% → 65% between poorest and richest quintiles.

The slope is steepest for the most disadvantaged groups.

➡️ Education attainment behaves very strongly like an income phenomenon.
2️⃣ Gender gaps persist at every income level

At every quintile:

Urban males > Urban females

Rural males > Rural females

Example:

Poorest quintile
Urban male: 56%
Urban female: 42%
Rural male: 49%
Rural female: 28%

➡️ Poverty and gender compound, not substitute.

3️⃣ Urban advantage is real — but income still matters

A poor urban female (42%) is worse off than a rich rural male (84%)
Geography helps, but cannot offset poverty

➡️ Urban–rural is a second-order effect after income.

4️⃣ Rural females face a double penalty
Lowest literacy at every quintile
Slowest absolute levels, even when income improves
Yet:
The gradient is strong → policy can move outcomes

🧠 The big takeaway
Education attainment in Pakistan is primarily an income phenomenon, amplified by gender and location.
If public education systems worked equally well for all, these gaps would be much flatter.

The fact that they aren’t tells us exactly where governance must intervene.

📌 Source: Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES), Pakistan Bureau of Statistics