Pakistan’s Population Size and Growth in the Light of the 1972 Census Evaluation Survey

The focus of this article is on the population size of Pakistan during the census year 1972, and such estimates of population growth as might be consistent with the population size.1 The 1972 Census Evaluation Survey (CES) was not concerned directly with estimates of these two parameters, but rather with the quality of the census data within their various aspects. Nevertheless, some of the data collected by CES throw light on population size and growth in Pakistan in 1972 and it is the purpose of this paper to extract and present analytically these data. It will be noted that such a presentation is made independently of and actually, at the time of writing, in the absence of final results for 1972.2 When the detailed results become available, it will be a matter for further analysis whether and how the conclusions of this article will have to be changed.