Class Analysis and a Reassessment of the New Middle Class after Three Decades

The new middle class is one of the most significant outcomes of the modernization process and the expansion of economic, social, and administrative relations in contemporary Iran. Emerging gradually since the 1950s, this class expanded with the development of higher education, the growth of bureaucracy, the expansion of industrial and service sectors, and the increasing prevalence of specialized, professional, and managerial occupations. The new middle class has played an important role in the social and political transformations of contemporary Iran and has acquired a distinctive position within the country’s social structure through its access to education, expertise, professional occupations, income, and differentiated lifestyles. This article aims to reassess the status of Iran’s new middle class over a period of approximately three decades by comparing its characteristics and social position during its formative and consolidating stages with its situation in the 2020s. The comparative findings indicate that, although the number of employed individuals exhibiting the characteristics of the new middle class has increased in quantitative terms compared with the 1980s, and the share of specialized, professional, and service-sector occupations has also expanded, the most significant transformation over the past three decades has been the emergence of a form of downward social mobility among a considerable segment of this class in terms of economic status. At the same time, the expansion of a rentier economy and the migration of a portion of the country’s skilled and highly educated workforce have emerged as other consequences of this condition. Accordingly, although Iran’s new middle class in the 2020s continues to possess considerable social capacity in terms of education and cultural resources, it has experienced a process of economic weakening and, in some strata, faces the risk of downward class mobility. This transformation may affect the capacity of the new middle class to fulfill its historical role in Iran’s processes of social and economic development.