Living in Pakistan

In Pakistan, IT is the field that most readily takes someone from outside, hiring across borders and working in English in a way the rest of the economy does not. Elsewhere, English reaches only so far and getting hired without local connections is hard. The pay is low on a world scale, but tax claims almost none of it and an inexpensive everyday life narrows the gap, leaving a bottom line that is thin rather than bare. Which sector you land in ends up mattering nearly as much as the country.

Pakistan sends far more people than it receives, with around 6.9M Pakistanis abroad against 3.5M foreign-born residents at home. The diaspora, up 12% over the past decade, is heavily oriented toward the Gulf — Saudi Arabia hosts 1.9M and the United Arab Emirates 932.4K — a pattern typical of contract labor. The foreign-born population, meanwhile, is dominated by Afghans (1.9M) and Indians.