A close look at the data on poverty levels and trends in Pakistan for the last five decades leads to two broad conclusions. First, poverty reduction has not been sustainable rather it has fluctuated remarkably.

This study is divided into four major sections. The first tries to put in a political economy perspective the emergence of interest in poverty studies in Pakistan in the early 1970s in the wake of the unraveling of Ayub Khan’s Decade of Development that ultimately resulted in the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh.