GeoFrame / International / South Asia
South Asia
Population 1,692,252,900 (2025) · 6 economies · World Bank region aggregate
Real earning power — does pay outrun the cost of living?
Pay here runs at 0.44× the national wage against a cost of living -76.6% vs the nation — a net earning advantage of +88.4%.
Coarse pay mapping. India proxies South Asia. India is ~86% of SAS population, so the proxy is defensible but still region-as-country. Directional. Pay is the owned differential for India, rebased to US = 1.00; the price level is a population-weighted World Bank roll-up. Read the number as directional.
The region at a glance
Compare regions
South Asiaagainst the North America (US-anchor) reference and the World aggregate — the metrics side by side. “—” = honest-absent.
South Asia this region | North America (US anchor) | World | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price level (US=1) | 0.23 | 0.98 | 0.46 |
| Pay index (US=1) | 0.44× | 0.95× | — |
| Real earning power | 1.88× | 0.96× | — |
| Population | 1,692,252,900 | 383,501,065 | 8,215,424,893 |
Methodology
Grain. World Bank standard region aggregate. A region aggregate rolls a whole continent into one number — coarse by construction. REGION grain only. Metro/city international pricing needs per-city data and is a later phase.
Price level. price_level_index = PA.NUS.PPP / PA.NUS.FCRF per country (latest non-null year, carry-forward), population-weighted (SP.POP.TOTL) to the WB region. Region aggregates have no native PPP/FCRF (no single currency), so the region PLI is rolled up from member countries. Source: World Bank Indicators API (PA.NUS.PPP ÷ PA.NUS.FCRF), CC BY 4.0 (+ WB terms).
Population. World Bank Indicators API, SP.POP.TOTL — WB region aggregate value (native, not summed). CC BY 4.0.
Pay. LICENSING: only the RELATIVE % differential is ingested (derived, safe). No raw survey $ values are stored. Rebased to US = 1.00 to compose with the price level. Owned pay-regions are mapped to World Bank regions best-effort; coarse mappings are flagged inline.
Signature. realEarningPower = payIndexUsBase / priceLevelIndex — does regional pay outrun the regional cost of living, relative to the US worker?