Publication: The developing world's bulging (but vulnerable) "middle class"
Date
2009-01-01
ISSN
Published
2009-01-01
Author(s)
Abstract
The "developing world's middle
class" is defined here as those who are not poor when
judged by the median poverty line of developing countries,
but are still poor by US standards. The "Western middle
class" is defined as those who are not poor by US
standards. Although barely 80 million people in the
developing world entered the Western middle class over
1990-2002, economic growth and distributional shifts allowed
an extra 1.2 billion people to join the developing
world's middle class. Four-fifths came from Asia, and
half from China. Most of the new entrants remained fairly
close to poverty, with incomes now bunched up just above $2
a day. The vulnerability of this new middle class to
aggregate economic contractions is evident in the fact that
one in six people in the developing world live between $2
and $3 per day. Over time, the developing world has become
more sharply divided between countries with a large middle
class and those with a relatively small one, with Africa
prominent in the latter group. Poor people in countries with
smaller middle classes may well be more exposed to slowing
economic growth.
Citation
“Ravallion, Martin. 2009. The developing world's bulging
(but vulnerable) "middle class". Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4816. © http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/4013 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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