Indian middle class happy with economic progress

GREAT INDIAN MIDDLE CLASS: The middle class has great economic ambitions but old habits also die hard.

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New Delhi: They have been described as aspirational, self absorbed, or simply too busy with climbing the socio economic ladder. But the CNN-IBN-HT poll finds out that the middle class of India today is satisfied with its economic conditions.

More than half of people questioned believed that their conditions had in fact improved.

The poll had defined a middle class person as one who owns either a two-wheeler or a four-wheeler or a colour TV or a telephone.

Going by that definition, the total middle class population is 20.2 per cent of the entire population of India.

Significantly 3.7 per cent could be categorised as higher middle class who live mostly in the cities. Interestingly, 77 per cent of them carry cell-phones and 32 per cent have credit cards.

The findings show a slow but steady change in attitudes and values. The middle class is more religious now but believes that action matters more than fate. A majority of them are still not interested in politics.

Also a majority of them are still not interested in politics and more than half of them still want to migrate - be it from villages to towns or from India to a foreign country.

The middle class has great economic ambitions but old habits also die hard. Strangely enough, the middle class prefers steady Government service to the unpredictable but high-paying private sector jobs.