Emigration from Pakistan - 1947-97

This paper is reflective of an attempt to construct a temporal profile of emigration from Pakistan over the past five decades. As detailed in the paper there have been distinct types of emigration streams distinguished on the basis of size, skill composition, duration of stay abroad and nature of links maintained with the sending country. First part of the paper presents these details. In the second part of the paper the impact of this emigration on economy and society is discussed briefly. Evidence pertaining to the effects of labour exodus and inflow of remittance on the household, labour market, and economy is examined. Also the return migration and its ramification for settlement are highlighted. Finally while summarising the findings some speculations about existing emigration pressures are presented in the final section. It needs to be highlighted that the research exercise is based on the data set which suffers from various limitations. The information pertaining to labour exodus is based on either the censuses of the receiving countries or the registration data of Pakistan. The latter set of data is incomplete because it does not cover illegal migration as well as all migrants do not register themselves. Similarly it is difficult to capture all the financial flows (remittances) associated with emigration. Non official transfers, foreign exchange inflow embodied in the commodity transactions particularly smuggling and others are not incorporated in the analysis.