Pakistan’s Army of Overseas Workers Keeps Economy Afloat

Inequality among nations encourages workers in poor nations to hunt for jobs abroad – and send funds home to families. Writing for Bloomberg, Khurrum Anis describes a young man dropping out of school and selling the family’s two buffalo to purchase a visa to work in Dubai so his family can build a new home and brothers can marry. “Almost 10 million Pakistanis work overseas and the sum they’ve sent home has doubled in the four years through June, to a record $13 billion,” Anis reports. Remittances curtail extreme poverty and with the Pakistani currency rate falling, small remittances go far. Meanwhile, the government of Pakistan borrows from the IMF and struggles to raise revenues. Far less than 1 percent of Pakistanis pay taxes; those receiving remittances do not have to pay income tax. The World Bank lists Pakistan among the world’s top 10 recipients of recorded remittances in 2012, and many more go unrecorded. The system may seem stable, but Pakistan loses teachers, health care workers and more as Pakistani youth abandon education. – YaleGlobal