Sixteen‑year‑old Nadia walks the one‑hour round‑trip to her employer’s house each day, pausing frequently along Lahore’s congested streets so her mother can rest her tired legs. She still had seven years of schooling left, but she was forced to drop out last year to help boost the family’s finances by joining her mother as a maid. “She’s my daughter, but we had no other choice,” says her father, Muhammad Amin, who earns 18,000 rupees a month (about $65) as a security guard. “It’s up to God what happens next.” To save on transport costs, the pair walk to work each day—a familiar story in Pakistan, where millions of families feel the brutal effects of an economy on the brink of collapse.
Pakistan’s finances have been wrecked by years of mismanagement and political instability, a situation worsened by a global energy crisis and devastating floods that left a third of the country underwater last year. Deeply in debt, the country needs to introduce tough tax and utility price increases to unlock another tranche of a $6.5 billion International Monetary Fund bailout and avoid default. This week the government raised taxes on luxury imports and services, claiming only the rich elite would be affected. At the same time it slashed fuel subsidies and increased the general sales tax, measures that will hit low‑income families hard. “We aren’t able to make ends meet when we have to pay for gas, electricity and household expenses, so how can we put Nadia in school?” her mother Miraj explains.
Pakistan consistently ranks near the bottom of global gender‑parity indexes, and girls are often seen as a financial burden because of the bride‑price parents must pay when they marry. Amin wanted his six daughters to be educated, hoping they would lift the family out of generational poverty. The household began to struggle in 2015 when Amin was injured in a road accident, forcing him to give up a relatively good wage as a labourer and take a low‑paying, sedentary job. He then told his wife she could work for the first time, but even with the extra income the family could not cope with skyrocketing inflation. “We had to force Nadia to drop out after completing fifth grade,” he says, his voice cracking with emotion. As the eldest, Nadia was often tasked with caring for her younger siblings, leaving her unable to keep up with homework; she was ordered to repeat school years, a not‑uncommon situation in Pakistan. The nominal school fees for the other five daughters are paid for by Miraj’s employer, but with finances precarious there is a risk that Nadia’s 13‑year‑old sister could be next to leave school.
After making dinner, Nadia collapses from exhaustion on the floor of their humble two‑room rented home while her sisters continue their homework. “We cannot make ends meet. That’s why I give whatever salary I get to my mother,” she says, adding that shouldering some of the burden may help her sisters have a brighter future. Pakistan’s president recently warned that half of the country’s children aged five to sixteen are at risk of entering the workforce or begging.
More than a fifth of Pakistan’s 220 million people live below the national poverty line, according to the Asian Development Bank and the IMF, and with inflation near 30 percent the problem is deepening. Wealth inequality is enormous, tax avoidance by the rich is rampant, and revenue collection is only nine percent of GDP, compared with an Asian average of 20 percent. Earlier this month, social media buzzed with pictures of wealthy Lahore residents queuing for hours to buy 700‑rupee flavored coffee from a newly opened Tim Hortons—more than the daily wage of most labourers. Nadia’s family, meanwhile, eat only twice a day, have stopped buying milk, and consider meat an unobtainable luxury. “We won’t buy flour for the house, but we make sure we buy the children’s school books and uniforms,” she says.
By World Bank and IMF metrics the Amin family still lives above the poorest in the country, but life is a constant struggle. Even if the country secures an IMF deal and subsequent loans from friendly nations, it could be months before the economy stabilises. For Miraj, jeopardising her daughter’s future has left her in despair. “This eats a mother from the inside,” she says tearfully.
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