Opinion published in Dawn 26 March 2026
Sohail Javed and Haris Gazdar
World oil prices have risen by a factor of around 50 per cent since the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran on 28 February. The Government of Pakistan quickly raised the country’s regulated price of various petroleum products by 20 per cent. There is great uncertainty about when and where the global markets will settle.
It has been suggested that the government will try to protect the public from some price rises and volatility. There are also discussions about various mechanisms such as fuel rationing and retail price differentials for different vehicle types - notably between 2-wheelers (motorcycles and scooters) and 4-wheelers (cars, jeeps, vans and trucks etc.). The discussion is partly premised on the understanding that 4-wheelers are owned and used by the rich, while 2-wheelers are owned and used by the poor.
What do the data say? In Pakistan we are fortunate to have statistically representative household sample surveys collected and made available by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The most recent round of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (or HIES 2024-2025) collected information, as did previous such surveys, on household consumption expenditure (which is used as a proxy for income) and household assets (such as land, cows, buffalos, and also various forms of motor transport).
According to HIES data under 9 per cent of Pakistan’s households own a 4-wheeler, but around 58 per cent own a 2-wheeler.There is some overlap too. Around 6 per cent of all households own both a 4-wheeler and a 2-wheeler.But who are these vehicle-owning households in terms of poverty status? There is a way of measuring this. Economists sort households in a sample by income (or per capita consumption expenditure in the case of Pakistan), and then divide them into 5 equal parts called quintiles. Comparing between quintiles is a simple way of seeing differences in the sample - and in the country by extension - by income level.
Table 1 shows that 4-wheeler ownership is, indeed, concentrated in the richest households. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of all households who report ownership of 4-wheeler vehicles are in the top 20 per cent in terms of income. So if the government is thinking of NOT shielding 4-wheeler owners/users from world oil price shocks it is a reasonable position. They constitute under 9 per cent of all households and an overwhelming majority are in the richest quintile.
The situation with 2-wheelers is more complex. Around 58 per cent of households own a 2-wheeler and ownership is more evenly distributed across income groups. It is concentrated, nevertheless, in the top three income quintiles - richest, upper middle, and middle – who account for around three-quarters of all households that own a 2-wheeler.In the poorest quintile 2-wheeler ownership is 27 per cent - i.e. 73 per cent of the households in that group do not own a 2-wheeler.The lowest two income segments - poorest and lower middle - account for around 25 per cent of all households that own 2-wheelers.So, a lot of the poorest rely on motorcycles but as a proportion of the income group the better off groups are over-represented even in 2-wheeler ownership.
If the aim of public policy is to protect the poor from high and volatile world fuel prices, NOT shielding 4-wheeler owners/users while protecting 2-wheeler owners/users is somewhat justifiable. But if the policy goal is to protect the POOREST - not the richest or the middle - then such a measure misses its target. It will be better to find mechanisms for protecting public transport users, or those who have no regular access to transportation at all, who are even below motorcyclists in the income scale.
