As the year comes to a close, Pakistan’s economic performance is once again being assessed through familiar indicators: inflation trends, exchange rate stability, and movements in the Pakistan Stock Exchange. These benchmarks are important for macroeconomic management. Yet they reveal little about a more fundamental question: whether economic growth in Pakistan is translating into upward mobility for ordinary households. An economy may stabilise, and markets may rally, without restoring the conditions that allow each generation to improve upon the last. In many countries, this idea has been captured through the notion of an “American Dream”. A shorthand for social mobility driven by education, employment, and asset ownership. Pakistan has never articulated an equivalent vision, but for much of its post-independence history, a similar expectation prevailed. Education was seen as a route into the middle class, marriage as a manageable life milestone, and home ownership as an eventual, if distant, goal. For younger Pakistanis today, these assumptions are increasingly under question. Income trends provide the first indication of this shift. According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, real wages have remained largely stagnant over the past decade, with sharp declines during periods of elevated inflation. Between 2022 and 2024, inflation exceeded 20% in multiple quarters, while nominal wage adjustments lagged behind. For many urban professionals entering the workforce, starting salaries in the range of PKR 50,000 to 80,000 per month struggle to cover rent, transport, utilities, and food simultaneously, leaving little scope for savings or asset accumulation. Employment structure further limits mobility. The Labour Force Survey shows that over 70 percent of workers remain in informal employment, where incomes are volatile and social protection is minimal. Even within the formal sector, wage compression has reduced the earnings premium associated with higher education. As a result, investment in human capital no longer reliably translates into improved economic outcomes, weakening a key mechanism of intergenerational mobility. Housing affordability illustrates the consequences most clearly. Data from the State Bank of Pakistan and market assessments indicate that urban property prices have risen several times faster than household incomes over the past fifteen years. In major cities, price-to-income ratios now place home ownership beyond the reach of most salaried households without family wealth or overseas income. Real estate has increasingly functioned as a store of value rather than a consumption good, benefiting asset holders while raising barriers for first-time buyers. The effects extend beyond housing markets. Home ownership has traditionally underpinned financial security and social stability. As ownership becomes less attainable, younger households remain in rental arrangements for longer periods, absorbing a disproportionate share of income in housing costs. This delays other life decisions, including marriage and child-rearing, not as a matter of preference but of affordability. These shifts are reflected in changing household behaviour. Rising education costs, healthcare expenses, and urban living costs have raised the perceived financial threshold for starting a family. Economic constraints now play a more visible role in shaping family formation. Such changes carry long-term implications for labour supply and consumption patterns. The disconnect between macroeconomic indicators and lived experience is reinforced by how growth is measured. Stock market performance, for instance, captures the valuation of a narrow segment of the economy. Fewer than one percent of Pakistanis directly participate in equity markets, and listed firms represent a limited share of total employment. While PSX benchmarks may signal investor confidence, they are weak indicators of whether growth is inclusive or sustainable. International evidence suggests that growth anchored in rising productivity and broad-based income gains is more durable than growth driven by asset appreciation or consumption alone. The World Bank and OECD consistently find that high inequality and low social mobility constrain long-term growth by limiting human capital utilisation. In Pakistan, disparities in income, education, and access to services, documented by the UNDP, risk becoming entrenched across generations. The economic costs of constrained mobility are cumulative. When younger workers perceive limited returns to effort and education, incentives weaken. Skilled individuals seek opportunities abroad, contributing to brain drain. Domestic consumption becomes increasingly reliant on remittances rather than rising real wages. Over time, this undermines productivity growth and fiscal capacity, reinforcing a cycle in which stabilisation takes precedence over structural opportunity. Seen through this lens, the fading of a “Pakistani Dream” is not a cultural concern but an economic one. Growth that does not translate into credible pathways for mobility risks becoming abstract, visible in indices but absent in household balance sheets. As the year ends, a more meaningful assessment of economic progress would ask whether a young Pakistani can reasonably aspire to financial independence, stable housing, and family formation without inherited advantage. These outcomes may be harder to measure than market indices, but they offer a clearer test of whether growth is working for the economy as a whole. The article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Business Recorder or its owners.