The human capital bill is unpaid, and health is where the arrears sit

Bangladesh 2036, chapter 5 of 10. Contents, sources and the five numbers.

The human capital bill is unpaid, and health is where the arrears sit

A country that wants 6 percent growth from 83 million workers has to have educated them by now.

Public education spending was 2.03 percent of GDP in 2024 and 11.88 percent of government expenditure in 2025. Domestic general government health spending was 0.31 percent of GDP in 2023, the lowest reading in the WHO series since 2000. Together they are 2.34 percent of GDP.

The peer comparison is the whole argument. On the same World Bank education series, India spent 4.10 percent of GDP in 2022 against Bangladesh's 2.09 percent in the same year, Vietnam 2.89 percent, Thailand 2.61 percent and Pakistan 1.97 percent. On the same WHO government health series for 2023, Thailand spent 3.53 percent of GDP, Vietnam 2.02, Indonesia 1.45, India 1.30, Pakistan 0.90 and Bangladesh 0.31. Bangladesh spends less public money on health, as a share of its economy, than any of them.

Bangladesh's public health spending is a ninth of Thailand's and a sixth of Vietnam's as a share of GDP, which is why the financing burden lands where it does.

It lands on households. Out of pocket payments were 79.31 percent of current health expenditure in 2023, up from 61.82 percent in 2000, with government at 14.48 percent and external partners at 3.50 percent. Out of pocket spending per head was 42.40 USD. In 2016, 24.42 percent of the population spent more than a tenth of household consumption on health and 8.45 percent spent more than a quarter, while 6.99 percent were pushed below the 3.65 dollar line by health payments. The UHC service coverage index reads 54, with non communicable disease coverage at 46 against 66 for reproductive and child health. There are 0.72 physicians, 0.66 nurses and midwives and 0.92 hospital beds per thousand people.

The education record is genuinely good on access and bad on learning. Primary net enrolment was 97.56 percent in 2022, survival to the last primary grade rose from 67.25 percent in 2010 to 86.85 percent in 2022, and adult literacy reached 79.0 percent. Girls now complete primary at 102.83 percent gross against 86.45 percent for boys, and secondary gross enrolment is 70.47 percent for girls against 64.30 percent overall. But learning poverty was 51.22 percent in 2022, so half of ten year olds cannot read and understand a simple text. Tertiary enrolment is 23.73 percent, and there is one technical and vocational student for every twelve secondary students. Firms offering formal training fell from 21.90 percent in 2013 to 6.42 percent in 2022. The Human Capital Index Plus reads 146.7 in 2025, up about eighteen points a decade, with a female score of 126.85 against a male score of 168.21.

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Sources for every figure in this chapter are listed on the contents page and in the series source ledger.