The socioeconomic position of Pakistan in the third world.

The position of Pakistan is compared with respect to other members of the 3rd world according to social and economic indicators of development. A total of 97 countries (32 from Asia and Pacific, 41 from Africa, and 24 from Latin America) are included in the definition of the 3rd world countries. 2 separate procedures are used in the analysis. The first relates to a ranking of the countries on the basis of selected indicators. For this purpose a variation of the Wroclaw Taxonomic Method was used. The 2nd procedure involves the grouping of countries according to the degree of similarity within groups relative to that between groups. The latter procedure is referred to as cluster analysis. The Wroclaw Taxonomic analysis program was run separately for all social, economic, and socioeconomic indices of development. Pakistan is relatively more developed in the demographic, cultural, and health-nutrition indices but is less developed in housing, education, and political areas. As a whole, on the composite social scale, Pakistan occupies 84th position in the 3rd world. Within Asia Pakistan seems to have a reasonably good status having 21st position in the composite index. There is considerable variation among the selected social indicators; the variation is maximum in political data. Pakistan shows significant progress in all economic areas except labor. In the composite index, Pakistan has sound economic status in the 3rd world. In the aggregate socioeconomic index of development, Pakistan has the strongest position in the 3rd world. It is clear from the clustering results that Pakistan, in general, is more similar to the African developing countries than to the countries of her own region. She is relatively better off in terms of economic indicators and is more or less at the same stage as some North and South American countries. The results of these cross-country comparisons can be useful in formulating some "directions" for Pakistan's future development.