Pakistan beats India on kitchens. India beats Pakistan on schooling. What does that actually tell us?

We’ve spent this project comparing Pakistan against India and Bangladesh across dozens of indicators — education, fertility, employment, household wealth. Most of the time, the pattern is exactly what you’d expect: India ahead, Pakistan behind, gap narrowing slowly.

The kitchen data broke that pattern.
→ Separate kitchen access: Pakistan 88% urban / 64% rural vs. India 72% urban / 49% rural — Pakistan ahead by 15-16 points in both settings.
→ But years of schooling, ages 18-30: India 9.3 (women) / 10.2 (men) vs. Pakistan 6.4 / 7.9 — India ahead by roughly 2-3 years.

→ Fertility transition: India’s TFR (2.0) is already near replacement level; Pakistan’s (3.6) has barely moved in comparison.

So which country is actually “doing better”? Neither answer is complete on its own. A tempting read is that Pakistan’s growth has been more household-improvement-oriented — putting a wall between the stove and the living room — while India’s has been more human-capital-oriented — putting more years into a classroom.

If that’s roughly right, it would suggest something real about the composition of growth in each country, not just its pace.

Data: Pakistan Digital Census 2023, India NFHS-5 2019-21, plus prior education and fertility comparisons in this series.

Analysis by Gallup Pakistan Digital Analytics.