Level and trends of wellbeing and household deprivations among urban slums of Islamabad

In Pakistan and across the world, slums are the characteristics of urban setting. Almost every slum exits across the boundaries of cities but in Islamabad, slums are right at the centre of urban sectors and they are inhabited particularly on banks of rain water passages. Notwithstanding, CDA has approved these slums. People started to migrate here from early 1960s and after 1997 CDA has regularized these slums covered under this study. Regularization provided inhabitants the right to build houses and live as legitimate member of the community. What particular socio-demographic characteristics they have, how households are distributed between and across communities, in terms of wealth index, and what patterns of household-level deprivations exist in all of these communities are the target of this research work. Findings show that wealth index varies within communities e.g. G7/1 slum is found as inhabiting largest poorest segment and G7/2 inhabiting largest richest segment of households. Household deprivations vary from 38 to 54 percent. In overall, about 45% of the total population is excess population that shows that these slums are over populated. It has been found that demographic transition has already been started for these communities, therefore, poverty and household deprivations could have negative implications in future.