ISLAMABAD — Pakistan cost of living pressures are tightening around household budgets, with families spending nearly two-thirds of their total outlays on food and housing-plus-utilities and just 2.48% on education, according to new government survey data, Jan. 4, 2026.
The breakdown helps explain why the Pakistan cost of living debate keeps returning to grocery bills and electricity charges: basic needs are consuming the space where families typically invest in mobility — schooling, skills and preventive health care.
Pakistan cost of living: What HIES 2024-25 actually measured
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics’ HIES 2024-25 final report puts hard percentages on that squeeze. It shows average household spending at 36.72% for food and nonalcoholic beverages and 25.72% for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels — a combined 62.44%, commonly rounded to 63%.
The same table shows comparatively low shares for education (2.48%), health (3.34%) and recreation and culture (1.12%). The survey was conducted using tablet-based fieldwork from September 2024 to June 2025 and covered 32,814 households nationwide, including Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, according to the PBS overview page for the HIES round.
What changed since the last round
The report’s own comparison shows housing and utilities taking a larger bite than six years earlier (23.76% in 2018-19 vs. 25.72% now), while education’s share fell from 3.98% to 2.48% — an erosion that hits hardest when the Pakistan cost of living is already forcing trade-offs in transport, nutrition and rent.
Why food and power dominate the Pakistan cost of living story
Pakistan’s recent inflation cycle helps explain why the “food and power” share is so sticky. The government’s Pakistan Economic Survey inflation chapter describes food and energy as major drivers during the 2022-23 surge, before pressures eased from their peak.
In May 2023, Reuters reported inflation hit a record 36.4% in April, driven mainly by food prices — a moment many households still cite as the point the Pakistan cost of living “reset” to a higher level. Record inflation in April 2023 coincided with sharp reductions in real purchasing power.
Energy pricing has been another flashpoint. Reuters later detailed natural gas tariff hikes ahead of an IMF review in 2023, while the Associated Press reported a nationwide strike by traders over inflation and utility bills that same year — a reminder that the Pakistan cost of living crisis has been building, not arriving overnight.
Education at 2.48%: A warning light, not just a statistic
The HIES share does not measure government budgets — it reflects what households themselves are able (or forced) to spend. But it lands in a country where education spending is already low by international comparison. World Bank data on government education spending has Pakistan under 2% of GDP in recent years.
Advocacy groups have also flagged the risk that prolonged pressure on family budgets pushes children out of school. In 2025, Save the Children warned that education spending had fallen sharply during the fiscal year and that out-of-school numbers remained high — a backdrop that makes the HIES education share especially concerning.
For policymakers, the new survey provides a clean benchmark: if food and power remain near 63% of household budgets, the Pakistan cost of living will keep crowding out the spending that builds long-term resilience.
