IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/diedps/352014.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A cartography of the new middle classes in developing and emerging countries

Author

Listed:
  • Brandi, Clara
  • Büge, Max

Abstract

The world is experiencing a structural change on an unprecedented scale: it is becoming less poor and more middle-class. The growth of emerging middle classes has profound implications for global development. Yet, although the emergence of middle classes across the globe and its potential effects are set high on the agendas of researchers and policy-makers, an often neglected fact is that middle-class characteristics vary greatly from one country to another. Upon closer look, there is not one new global middle class but a variety of very different burgeoning middle classes. This paper aims to highlight the differences in middle-class growth, size and consumption capacities in developing and emerging economies. To take account of this heterogeneousness, the paper presents a novel middle-class typology that includes nine different “types” of middle classes, ranging from small and affluent middle classes to large middle classes with low spending capacity. The typology allows for comparing different middle classes across countries and is a useful tool for more fine-grained research and policy analysis. Against that background, the paper points to fruitful avenues for future research with regards to interpreting the role of the rising middle classes in the context of economic growth, democracy and civic values as well as environmental challenges.

Suggested Citation

  • Brandi, Clara & Büge, Max, 2014. "A cartography of the new middle classes in developing and emerging countries," IDOS Discussion Papers 35/2014, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:diedps:352014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/199448/1/die-dp-2014-35.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thun, Eric, 2018. "Innovation at the middle of the pyramid: State policy, market segmentation, and the Chinese automotive sector," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 70, pages 7-19.
    2. Muradian, Roldan & Pascual, Unai, 2020. "Ecological economics in the age of fear," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    3. Rogelio Madrueño-Aguilar, 2017. "Global Income Distribution and the Middle-Income Strata: Implications for the World Development Taxonomy Debate," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(1), pages 1-18, January.
    4. Vide Romana Korez & Zavrl Irena & Hunjet Anica, 2021. "Exploring Emerging Markets’ Demographic and Macroeconomic Dynamics and the Middle Class Growth: The Case of China and India," Naše gospodarstvo/Our economy, Sciendo, vol. 67(4), pages 33-55, December.
    5. Meijer, Karen, 2014. "Can supply chain initiatives reduce deforestation? A comparative analysis of cases from Brazil and Indonesia," IDOS Discussion Papers 36/2014, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:diedps:352014. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ditubde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.