Bangladesh and Pakistan: The Great Divergence

There was a time when Bangladesh lagged behind Pakistan in the quality of life measured by any of its major indicators, except for adult literacy and schooling of children. But it is a different story today. Bangladesh is ahead of Pakistan in almost every respect. I intend to present the facts (data) to support this proposition first and then explore the reasons for the great divergence. I am far more certain about the evidence than I am of my explanation since some of it is guesswork, though hopefully not too off the mark. We have reasonably reliable data for making comparisons on the levels of and changes in the quality-of-life indicators during the last 30 to 40 years. I use the data cited by the World Bank, UNDP and other international organisations. Well, Bangladesh is a far better country than Pakistan to live in and enjoy more freedoms. (Paradoxically the perception is that Pakistan is less corrupt and an easier place to do business, and its people are happier.) When we look at the Human Development Index (HDI), the position of Bangladesh (135) is higher than of Pakistan (152) in the ranking, though Bangladesh was behind Pakistan 30 years ago. The value of HDI for Bangladesh rose from 0.388 in 1990 to 0.614 in 2018 whereas for Pakistan it went up from 0.404 to 0.560. The HDI values adjusted for inequality differ even more: 0.465 for Bangladesh and 0.336 for Pakistan. An equally important fact is that the gender gap in Bangladesh is much smaller than in Pakistan and women in Bangladesh have made far more progress.