The Unequal Future: Intergenerational Inequality, Opportunities and Social Mobility in Pakistan

Overview

This report examines intergenerational inequality in Pakistan, focusing on young people, social mobility, and the changing conditions that shape their transition to adulthood. The evidence presents a mixed picture. Younger generations are generally better educated and better off than their parents, yet relative mobility remains limited: among people born in the 1980s whose parents were in the bottom half of the education distribution, only 9.4% reached the top quarter of educational attainment, compared with a median of 15% across developing economies.

The report traces how advantage and disadvantage are transmitted across generations through education, health and nutrition, digital access, and employment, drawing on HIES 2024-25 and research using PSLM and HIICS data on educational, occupational and formal-informal employment persistence. It then examines how digitalization, artificial intelligence and climate-related shocks are becoming new channels through which inherited circumstances are carried forward.

It sets out six directions for a life-course response: reducing disadvantages that accumulate early in life, making education a more effective means of mobility, integrating decent and productive employment, managing the digital and climate transition as an intergenerational issue, strengthening institutional coordination through existing SDG mechanisms, and monitoring development outcomes beyond national averages.