A study conducted by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), has shown that the size of the middle class in Pakistan is around sixty million. In a research titled, 'Estimating the size of the middle class in Pakistan', Dr Durr-e-Nayab, Chief of Research and Head, Department of Population Sciences, argues that the 'middle class' should not be confused with 'middle income'.
The concept of the middle class is a multidimensional phenomenon that cannot be adequately captured by the existing definitions based merely on households' income or expenditure categories. The measure suggested in the PIDE study is a composite of five weighted sub-indices of factors deemed to be important for being part of the middle class, namely, education, occupation, income, lifestyle and housing.
Using an 'expanded middle class' concept that includes all middle class categories, Pakistan is estimated (based on PSLM 2007-08) to have a middle class that is around 35 percent of the total population, which approximates to a substantial 61 million. The middle class is found to be more of an urban phenomenon with its size being much larger in the urban areas at both the national and the provincial levels.
Looking at the provincial differences in the size of the middle class, Punjab (37%) and Sindh (36%) have larger middle class proportions than Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (32%) and Balochistan (29%). Among the urban areas, Sindh urban (56%) has the largest proportion of the middle class followed by Punjab (55%), Balochistan (50%) and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (49%). When we look at the rural areas, Punjab (24%) has the largest middle class proportion followed by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (22%), Sindh (17%) and Balochistan (17%). The study found strong association between the professional occupations and the upper middle and upper classes. This fits in well with the general belief that professional occupations constitute the upper-middle class. Other white-collar occupations are taken up by the middle-middle class, and the manual occupations comprise the lower classes.
The PIDE study stresses the need to do a comparative study in the region using the proposed multidimensional approach to gauge the actual size of the middle class. However, using the existing definitions, when compared to its neighbours, barring Sri Lanka, Pakistan has a bigger share in its population of middle class than all other countries including India.-PR