THE UNEVEN LADDER: PERCEPTIONS OF POVERTY, INEQUALITY, AND SOCIAL MOBILITY IN URBAN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

Abstract

This paper examines the perceptions of people of the cities about economic disparities and upward mobility in four major cities of Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, and Rawalpindi. The data were examined by descriptive statistics, regression, and ANOVA tests using a quantitative cross-sectional study design of 400 participants. The results have shown that poverty is seen to be mainly a structural matter associated with a lack of good governance, corruption, and lack of access to education and jobs (M = 4.42). According to the respondents, they strongly believed that income inequality has been increased (M = 4.35), with the majority of them considering it to be socially harmful and unjust. Education was found to be the greatest avenue to social mobility (M = 4.18) although the sense of opportunity justice was low (M = 3.05), a factor indicating a large-scale disillusionment surrounding meritocracy. Regression analysis demonstrated that education (β = 0.352, p < 0.001), income (β = 0.310, P < 0.001) had a significant effect on the perceptions in all domains, whereas gender had a weak negative effect. The results of ANOVA indicated that there were significantly different achievements between the groups based on their education level, as well as income (p < 0.001). On the whole, the paper supports the importance of education, income and structural inequality in defining the attitude of the population towards poverty and mobility in urban Punjab, as a policy suggestion to the inclusion development and fair growth.