Rise of The Middle Class in Pakistan

Abstract

The word middle class is the most commonly used word in social sciences but it has no absolute or broadly accepted definition. The purpose of this research is to investigate the phenomenon of the rise of Middle Class in Pakistan by taking lifestyle, education, occupation, income and housing as primary indicators. This thesis also tries will to answer in what way the post 2007 economic downturn has been cushioned by consumption patterns and the factors that contributed to the slight decline in the size of the middle class in this period. The study shows that the size of Middle Class increased from 2004-05 to 2008-09 but it started to shrink post 2009 instead of rising as commonly believed.