Determinants of Households’ Budget Allocation to Health and Education in Balochistan, Pakistan: Role of Income, Household Size, and Employment

Abstract

Aim of the Study: The main aim of this research paper is to analyze the behavior of households' budget expenditures on education and health in the province of Balochistan. There are several reasons for our study to select Balochistan, but the most important reason is that Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan.

Methodology: For this quantitative research, the descriptive statistic, Pearson correlation and Working-Leser model.

Findings: Amongst health categories, households spend lion share of their budget on medicine and education categories, they spend more on school/ college/ university fees. The Pearson correlation result suggests that budget allocation to health is strongly negatively correlated with logarithm income while obtaining a positive correlation between budget allocation to education and logarithm income. Correlations between household size and budget allocation to health and education were negative while a positive correlation between budget allocation to health and employee, and between budget allocation to education and employee. The econometric result suggests that income, household size and employment status are the key drivers for determining household budget allocation to education and health.

Conclusion: The rise in employment and controlling policy of household size could be a valid policy options while the income elasticity is suggesting that rise in income could also be a valid policy option in case of Balochistan for rising budget allocation to health and education.