From scattered surveys to a 35-year picture of Pakistan’s progress

Pakistan’s development story is often told through isolated numbers: literacy in one report, immunisation in another, women’s participation somewhere else, and household living conditions in a separate dataset.
But what happens when we bring those strands together?

At Gallup Pakistan Digital Analytics, we have used AI-assisted data processing to merge, clean, harmonise and analyse more than one million survey data points collected across seven major surveys over three and a half decades.

The result is the Pakistan Human Flourishing Index (HFI): a composite 0–100 measure that tracks progress across four essential pillars:

Health
Education and capabilities
Women’s empowerment
Living standards

The index shows that Pakistan’s overall Human Flourishing Index has risen from 37.2 in 1990–91 to 66.7 in 2024–25.

That is not a small change. It represents a country where millions more people are living longer, accessing health services, sending children to school, living in better homes, using electricity and modern assets, and benefiting from a higher baseline of everyday wellbeing than was possible a generation ago.

The data also shows that progress has not been equal.

Health has improved most dramatically. Living standards have risen steadily. Education has moved forward, but more gradually. Women’s empowerment has improved too, yet remains the area where Pakistan’s development journey has the furthest to go.

The real value of this exercise is not simply one number.

It is the creation of a long-run evidence base that allows us to ask better questions:

Where has Pakistan improved fastest?
Which groups and regions have been left behind?
Which social gains are durable, and which remain fragile?
What must happen for economic progress to translate into fuller human capability and dignity?
This is only the first version of the HFI.

Gallup Pakistan Digital Analytics plans to continue enriching the index with further survey waves, additional indicators, regional and demographic breakdowns, and new ways of measuring the lived experience of Pakistanis.
Because development should not only be measured by GDP, headlines or political sentiment.

It should be measured by whether people are healthier, more educated, more secure, more empowered and better able to live the lives they value.