While a definition, and hence estimation of Pakistan’s middle class, or middle classes, has not been easy, the term has acquired much prominence in social and anecdotal references. Often, Pakistan’s middle class is referred to by the consumer goods that it has increasingly been purchasing, from washing machines to motorcycles. Attempts to quantify Pakistan’s middle class, largely based on income and the purchase of consumption goods, show that as many as 42% of Pakistan’s population belong to the upper and middle classes, with 38% counted as “the middle class”. It is the multiple fractions within the middle class which have been dominating the political and developmentalist agenda in Pakistan. Perhaps from the fringes of this middle class, one could possibly expect the emergence even of progressive forms of politics.

Source: The Hindu February 27, 2017 18:40 UTC