Human capital development and food security nexus: An empirical appraisal from districts of Punjab province

It is proven fact that human capital development plays a pivotal role in enhancing industrial and agricultural productivity and economic growth. Comprehensive research has been rendered by scientists to observe the relationships of human capital development (HCD) with multiple dimensions but none of the scientists explored, yet, connections between HCD and food security. This study is an endeavor to explore ranking of districts of Punjab province of Pakistan with respect to different indicators of HCD including overall literacy rate, farmers’ literacy rates and population per school. Moreover, relationships between food security and target variables are also quantified. Data are collected from Punjab Development Statistics (Government of Punjab 2009) and Food Insecurity report 2009 (SDPI, SDC and WFP 2009). Moreover, values of the target variables are arranged in descending order to explore the ranks of the districts in the province while bidirectional Pearson correlation analysis is rendered to know the direction of relationships between food insecure population (%) and overall and farmers’ literacy rates and population per school. Negative relationships are found between food insecure populations and rest of other indicators. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that policy maker must make necessary arrangements to augment literacy rates to secure food for the masses in the province.