The mutual relationship between change in population distribution and its determinants and consequences on one hand, and social and economic development on the other, is becoming an increasingly important area of concern for researchers, policy makers and planners alike. During tha last several years the International Geographical Union Commission on Population Geography has devoted much of its attention to this problem and organized a series of international meetings focusing on population redistribution and its ramifications in different parts of the world. During one such meeting, held in 1980 in Karachi, Pakistan, some thirty papers were submitted by participants coming mostly from five countries in South Asia: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The present volume is an outcome of that symposium, but it should not be regarded merely as a report of proceedings; these have been published separately by the Commission. Furthermore, all Pakistani papers were published in their original version in a separate volume edited by M.1. Siddiqi, who coordinated local arrangements for the meeting on behalf of Karachi University. This present volume offers only a selection of the original papers, all substantially edited and thoroughly revised, and brings them together with additionally solicited texts. All original figures have been redrawn and tables and references have been updated and standardized as much as possible.

Until recently, the world has been preoccupied with over-population, pressure on resources, alarming growth rates, fertility and unemployment. Issues like reduction in population growth rate, increasing longevity, the greying population, reducing fertility rates and overall depopulation have not been considered seriously. Depopulation has led to redistribution. Further, the world economy forces women to choose between career and child. COVID-19 has further aggravated the situation. It appears that population processes are smooth with no major upheavals. But, if we delve deeper, we will find undercurrents happening concurrently which contribute towards population composition. These undercurrents have been swift and cannot be captured by decadal censuses. Hence, one has to depend on alternative sources. Surprisingly, the electronic media has become quite sensitive to population issues. In this book, an attempt has been made to understand these issues differently.

The Fund has recognized in recent years that one cannot separate issues of economic growth and stability on one hand and equality on the other. Indeed, there is a strong case for considering inequality and an inability to sustain economic growth as two sides of the same coin. Central to the Fund’s mandate is providing advice that will enable members’ economies to grow on a sustained basis. But the Fund has rightly been cautious about recommending the use of redistributive policies given that such policies may themselves undercut economic efficiency and the prospects for sustained growth (the so-called “leaky bucket” hypothesis written about by the famous Yale economist Arthur Okun in the 1970s). This SDN follows up the previous SDN on inequality and growth by focusing on the role of redistribution. It finds that, from the perspective of the best available macroeconomic data, there is not a lot of evidence that redistribution has in fact undercut economic growth (except in extreme cases). One should be careful not to assume therefore—as Okun and others have—that there is a big tradeoff between redistribution and growth. The best available macroeconomic data do not support such a conclusion.

This volume makes a major intervention in the debates around the nature of the political economy of Pakistan, focusing on its contemporary social dynamics. This is the first comprehensive academic analysis of Pakistan's political economy after thirty-five years, and addresses issues of state, class and society, examining gender, the middle classes, the media, the bazaar economy, urban spaces and the new elite. The book goes beyond the contemporary obsession with terrorism and extremism, political Islam, and simple 'civilian–military relations', and looks at modern-day Pakistan through the lens of varied academic disciplines. It not only brings together new work by some emerging scholars but also formulates a new political economy for the country, reflecting the contemporary reality and diversification in the social sciences in Pakistan. The chapters dynamically and dialectically capture emergent processes and trends in framing Pakistan's political economy and invite scholars to engage with and move beyond these concerns and issues.

This report discusses the relationship between population and environmental change, the forces that mediate this relationship, and how population dynamics specifically affect climate change and land-use change.