The developing world's bulging(but vulnerable) "middle class"

Ravallion, Martin

关键词: ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE;    ABSOLUTE POVERTY;    ABSOLUTE TERMS;    ABSOLUTE VALUE;    AGGREGATE POVERTY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4816
RP-ID  :  WPS4816

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The "developing world's middleclass" is defined here as those who are not poor whenjudged by the median poverty line of developing countries,but are still poor by US standards. The "Western middleclass" is defined as those who are not poor by USstandards. Although barely 80 million people in thedeveloping world entered the Western middle class over1990-2002, economic growth and distributional shifts allowedan extra 1.2 billion people to join the developingworld's middle class. Four-fifths came from Asia, andhalf from China. Most of the new entrants remained fairlyclose to poverty, with incomes now bunched up just above $2a day. The vulnerability of this new middle class toaggregate economic contractions is evident in the fact thatone in six people in the developing world live between $2and $3 per day. Over time, the developing world has becomemore sharply divided between countries with a large middleclass and those with a relatively small one, with Africaprominent in the latter group. Poor people in countries withsmaller middle classes may well be more exposed to slowingeconomic growth.