India’s middle-class riddle: How much do you need to be called rich?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s rapid growth story is often linked to its burgeoning middle class. But lack of any official definition makes for an interesting trend: over 88% of urban Indians, including many earning well past India’s per capita income, call themselves ‘middle-class’ when asked to describe their family’s financial situation, reveals the latest round of the YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey, held in July.
Normally, about 60% of a given population that falls in the middle by a particular metric, such as income, would qualify as the middle class, leaving 20% each being the rich or poor class. While income can be one metric, some also broaden it to occupation, education and social status. But there’s no global consensus on who the ‘middle class’ is.
The feeling of being financially middle-class is deeply ingrained across income groups. Among those earning less than ₹50,000 a month, 90% consider themselves middle-class, the survey found. But so do 57% of those earning over ₹4 lakh a month.
Interestingly, over 12% of those earning over ₹2.5 lakh also call themselves ‘poor’ or ‘lower middle class’, while nearly 36% of those earning less than ₹30,000 say they are ‘affluent’ or ‘upper middle class’. The survey covered 10,314 respondents across over 200 cities and towns. Only 7% of those who answered this question identified as the affluent or rich class, and 5% poor, indicating a broad middle-class self-perception, with a tiny share at the extremes.
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