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By Dr Naveeda Katper Different countries have different characteristics regarding population, geography, and natural resources that shape their economic growth. Economists use various indicators to measure development, and population is one of the most debated among them. A large population is often viewed as a hurdle to economic growth. However, every issue deserves to be examined from different angles. The question, “Is a large population a curse or a blessing?” cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. We need to move beyond the idea of population as a burden and understand the concept of the demographic dividend. What appears to be a curse can become a blessing when viewed through the right perspective and supported by the right policies. Research by the RAND Corporation and the World Bank has shown that countries with a growing working-age population can experience faster economic growth when supported by sound education, health, and employment policies. Whether a large population becomes an economic asset depends on governance and public policy. A growing population is not necessarily a curse because every additional mind brings new ideas, different perspectives, and fresh solutions to existing problems. One mind can accomplish one task, two minds can accomplish two, and millions of minds can achieve far more. That is the value of teamwork and collective human potential. Every individual possesses different skills, abilities, and talents that can contribute to national development. What many consider a burden may actually become a country’s greatest strength if those human resources are properly developed. This is the essence of the demographic dividend—the economic advantage that emerges when the working-age population becomes larger than the dependent population. Development economists describe this period as a “window of opportunity” rather than a guaranteed outcome. Highly populated countries can utilize their youthful population to strengthen their economies. After India, China, the United States, and Indonesia, Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world. This should be seen as an opportunity rather than a challenge because more than 65 percent of Pakistan’s population consists of young people. That gives the country a significant advantage. A demographic dividend can only be realized when the working-age population is educated, healthy, skilled, and productively employed. When more people are working and contributing to the economy, household savings increase, investment grows, government spending on dependents declines, and both economic output and per capita income improve. The World Bank has repeatedly emphasized that human capital—education, health, and skills—is one of the strongest drivers of long-term productivity and national income. The real challenge is identifying the policies required to achieve this dividend. A country can benefit only if it creates sufficient employment opportunities, provides quality education and skill development, ensures access to healthcare, encourages women to participate in the workforce, and maintains stable economic and public policies. When these conditions exist, the country enjoys faster economic growth, greater productivity, increased investment and savings, improved living standards, and stronger entrepreneurship and innovation. Economic growth becomes inevitable when people are hardworking, equipped with multiple skills from an early age, and capable of adapting to changing economic demands. Skilled and self-reliant citizens become the driving force of national development. Evidence from South Korea, Singapore, and Ireland shows that investment in education and skills transformed youthful populations into globally competitive economies. However, a demographic dividend can quickly become a demographic burden if employment opportunities and skills do not keep pace with population growth. The consequences may include rising unemployment, poverty, social unrest, and migration. Economists and demographers consistently argue that a demographic dividend is not automatic; it is an opportunity that must be earned through effective governance and strong institutions. Without adequate planning and investment, a large youth population can become a liability instead of an asset. The International Labour Organization has warned that persistent youth unemployment can reduce economic productivity and increase social instability. A dynamic economy capable of creating millions of formal-sector jobs each year is essential for absorbing a growing workforce. Human capital development should remain at the center of national policy. Strong educational systems, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), digital literacy, coding, digital finance, and technology-based curricula should be introduced from the early years of education. Equal opportunities for girls and women in education and employment are equally important. Pakistan also needs job creation, labour market reforms, export-led manufacturing, labour flexibility, investment in high-value industries such as technology, electronics, and specialized services, support for youth entrepreneurship and microfinance, and stronger healthcare infrastructure. UNESCO has consistently highlighted that technical and vocational education equips young people with practical skills that improve employability and economic resilience. Pakistan possesses one of the largest youth populations in the region, but this advantage can only be realized through greater investment in education, skills, and employment. In conclusion, population control alone is not a long-term solution to economic growth. Developing people’s abilities, expanding opportunities, and investing in human capital are far more effective. The experiences of countries such as Italy and Japan also demonstrate that declining populations and ageing societies create their own economic challenges. The real question is not how many people a country has, but how well it prepares its people to contribute to national development. Research across both developed and developing countries consistently concludes that people become an economic asset when governments invest in their education, health, productivity, and opportunities rather than viewing population solely as a number. The writer holds a PhD from Malaysia and writes on economic development, public policy, and demographic issues. She can be reached at naveedakatper11@gmail.com

By Dr.Sajjad Ali A suffering pervades the walled villages of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the privacy of the homes in the city, in a language of suffering all distinct. The language of infertility is not the one used in medical textbooks but it is the one that speaks to life and death in Pashtun society. Being a childless woman is being defined by a lexicon of failure here, a failure that runs against the very ethos of Pashtunwali, where a person’s nasl (lineage) and naam (name) is everything. The condition is identical, but the language employed to use it as a weapon against women and men are very different, very vicious. It is a public indictment to her; a silent, emasculating damnation to him. The Woman’s Cross: The Public Indictment The worthiness of a Pashtun woman is arbitrarily squeezed into her reproductive capability. When she drops the one perceived duty, she is not infertile, she is cursed, useless and dangerous. The attack starts with an endless list of names and peghoor (tease). She is a banjh (barren), the most common and heart-breaking epithet. She is a shana (dry, unfruitful tree that bears no fruit). She is khaanch (empty), a hollow vessel with no substance. The elders of the family complain, “Mata plar na laree, khaanch de” (She hasn’t borne him a son, she is empty). Her body is compared to the barren land of Sheera zameena (salty, infertile land) which nothing can grow, or shara (fallow land). The childless woman or the one whose children have died is generally known as a kheeri, which translates as woman of ill omen, bearer of misfortune. She is slightly banned from being present at weddings or cradles (gharay). When a child is sick after the visit, people begin muttering, “Da kheeri da las na ye bimar sho” (After the touch of the kheeri the child fell sick). This spiritual banishment is so devastating! If her husband returns to marriage, or if the family goes bankrupt, she is considered a shamat (a bad omen, a curse to the family) and a manhoos (inauspicious, unlucky). The psychological take-home message is no less horrifying: she is not only failing to give birth; she is an active, evil agent of birthlessness and death and decay. She’s a curse for their existence. The peghoor is available in a dramatic fashion. A mother-in-law would see a hen with chicks and will loudly cry out, “Da charkha ham bachy kawal, khu da adamzad mung na shwe.” (Even this hen hatched chicks, but this human gave us nothing). Neighbours grumble, ‘Khudai da qahar da, cha ta kho pukha na we (She is God’s wrath, she hasn’t ripened for anybody—to mean that she has not become a mother). A cruel comic scene that is often acted out: The guest exclaims the house is a paradise, and the mother-in-law replies, “Kor kho jannat de, khu khaanch de, khoonda raghlay na de” [The house is a paradise, but it is empty, no fragrance has come into it]—singing about the fragrance of a child which reminds her of something she failed to do with her daughter-in-law. This puts her in an economic hostage position. She is a servile slave to make up for her “defect” because of the ever-present unspoken danger of a balka (co-wife). All the money is spent on her own “cure,” which includes dangerous dai (traditional birth attendant) concoctions, expensive visits to taweez-keeping (piir sahib) and futile taweez (amulet) usage. She will wear a tawiz laced with prayers for fertility and she will be made to drink water that has been washed with a dranzay (a special supplication)—her husband’s diagnosis will not even be suspected. This quest devours the family’s resources, everything aimed at the woman who is in a desperate struggle to remain not the family’s shamat. The Man’s Secret: The Silent Emasculation The man feels that the lack of producing babies is not something he has failed to do biologically, but something he has failed to do as a man. He can’t be brought into pity, because if he is, he’s acknowledging that he lost nang (honour). The words he has to say, the words he is not allowed to say, the words he can’t say at all: his torment is a poison that is surrounded by a wall of aggressive denial, but is intended to un-man him. If he is unable to generate a zo-ye (a son), then he is no longer a sar-ye (a man, a leader). His name is a na-mard, the worst of all names, that of a non-man. He is a susra—an utterly impotent, weakling man, a term of maximum contempt. A khassya (castrated bull, eunuch), who has no power and virility. He is a namardanz (an impotent creature). A popular bit of vicious poetry is: “Dwa kalah ye we-weted, khu goly ye na kholay shwe” (“He tried twice, but not a bud was able to blossom for him”, a poetic and mean way of saying that he was unable to start life. His true trial is in the hujra (man’s assembly). The taunt is never a literal arrow, but an arrow of some sort. A story will be told: “Da kala de, cha tofang walwela, khu dasy nese wa, che laande khassia we” (“There’s a man who wields a big rifle, and makes a lot of noise, but inside, he’s a eunuch”). They all laugh, the childless man is forced to laugh loudest, and the white-hot shame is his. The tale is best told in a popular social media comic strip that shows a doctor showing a semen analysis report to a furiously upset husband with a nervous wife looking on: Panel 1: A doctor shows a semen analysis report to a furious-looking husband, with his wife sitting nervously. The Doctor says, “The report reads: azoospermia.The Doctor says, “The report reads azoospermia. Panel 2: A huge, broken speech bubble bursts out of the husband’s mouth: “Tor! Tor! Sta da peghalay!” (“Lies! “It’s your slander!”)

By Arooba Younas The surge in the use of Artificial Intelligence by businesses, corporations, and organisations has been illustrated by the latest McKinsey Global Survey on the state of AI. Accordingly, 88 per cent of organisations reported the regular use of AI in at least one business function, a 10 per cent increase from the results of the survey conducted in the preceding year. Indicative of business leaders’ desire to boost productivity and reduce operational costs, companies adopted AI to achieve greater efficiency. The reverberations of AI integration are felt in the splintering of the organisational pyramid, driven by the expansion of what a single individual can accomplish. However, flattening hierarchies is not tantamount to flattening skill hierarchies or democratisation of expertise. Research has shown that Generative AI (GenAI) has the greatest impact on the level of expertise required to perform jobs, resulting in an accelerated learning curve for entry-level workers. Whilst shortening the learning curve and the time it takes novices to gain competence at new tasks, the limits of GenAI in upskilling workers have been revealed in an experiment conducted by researchers from Harvard Business School’s Data Design Institute and Stanford University, involving 78 employees from IG Group, a UK-based fintech company. Dividing the employees into three groups of occupational insiders (professional writers), adjacent outsiders (marketing specialists), and distant outsiders (technologists), the experiment attempted to gauge whether marketing specialists and technologists could match the performance of professional writers in conceptualising and drafting articles for IG Group’s website while receiving GenAI assistance. The results revealed that AI levelled the playing field at the conceptualisation stage. However, when the nature of the task shifted to executing the ideas by putting them in writing, a prominent expertise gap emerged. Both with and without GenAI’s help, the writers produced the best work, with marketers coming close and technologists lagging behind regardless of AI use. The divergence in performance, despite AI support, is a portrayal of the “GenAI Wall”, depicting the point at which GenAI does not sufficiently reduce the expertise gap between occupational insiders and outsiders. This is indicative of GenAI’s limit in how far it can carry workers outside their domain expertise. Without foundational knowledge, it becomes difficult for outsiders to distinguish between effective and flawed suggestions generated by GenAI. As a result, they may rely on its outputs without applying the necessary refinement, critical judgement and contextual understanding. Nonetheless, the experiment has implications for business organisations, particularly for leaders who overestimate the abilities of AI. It can only hasten the competency of individuals who are adjacent to a domain, and not conjure expertise out of thin air. In this regard, work structure, which is already undergoing change, can be rethought along the lines of expertise. A more fluid work environment can be created, where, in lieu of strict job roles, boundaries can blur by converging adjacent specialists. However, the experiment is not an advocacy for hiring fewer novices. Studies have shown a reduction in entry-level role postings, falling by 32 per cent in 2025 compared to 2019-2022. This suggests a myopic conclusion drawn from GenAI’s putative capabilities, for it is beginners who, when assimilated into the company’s culture and learn through practice, become experts. By thwarting the pipeline of learners by letting AI take over early-career work, which actually led to the making of experts, today’s efficiency may be sacrificed for impoverished talent tomorrow. The latter has been represented by the AI boomerang effect – recent AI-related layoffs, which are now being quietly reversed – as reports indicated employers regretting layoff decisions. This is because of AI hallucinations as well as its inadequacy to replace the required context or institutional knowledge, which human employees possessed. Although the IG Group experiment was conducted in a Western context, its implications can be generalised across the world, particularly as the allure of AI has diffused across continents. However, the embracing of AI in the Global South, whether in businesses or other sectors, has to be accompanied by digital literacy, localised governance, and a research ecosystem. This is significant lest the adoption of AI brings with it downsides in the form of overdependence and a putative magic bullet solution to solving complex issues ranging from bad governance to climate-related disasters. Additionally, GenAI’s exposure to the labour market has caused faster materialisation of disruptions rather than productivity gains due to a higher risk of job losses, as AI-driven automation can close clerical and administrative positions, which have historically served as pathways to decent work. Conclusively, GenAI has brought the promise of enabling individuals to bridge their capability gaps. However, AI cannot replace expertise or be an all-encompassing fix because it relies on pattern recognition rather than understanding real-world context. Thus, the future of work is where humans can learn to effectively partner with AI, grounded in human judgement, and not replacing it.   Arooba Younas is a Research Assistant at the Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies (CASS), Lahore. She can be reached at info@casslhr.com.