Beschreibung:
<jats:p>The middle class is primarily an urban phenomenon generally
associated with professional occupations, service sector and salaried
jobs. Yet despite a general acceptance of the important economic,
political and social role that the middle class plays in society, the
term itself remains ambiguous and arbitrary. In much of recent
literature the middle class is equated with middle income which does not
reflect what „class‟ refers to in classical writings. The present paper
takes a multidimensional approach to measure the middle class in
Pakistan through a weighted composite index that takes into account all
possible factors associated with the concept, including income,
occupation, education, housing and lifestyle. Using the Pakistan Social
and Living Measurement Survey (PSLM) 2007-08, the magnitude of the
middle class in the country, as represented by the „expanded middle
class‟, is estimated at around 35 percent of the total population. The
proposed measure of the middle class has a sense of stability attached
to it, making it less susceptible to sudden inflationary shocks than an
income-based measure. JEL classification: Z13, R20, A14 Keywords:
Pakistan, Middle Class, Multidimensional</jats:p>