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Middle class: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Middle class
The term middle class first appeared in print in 1745 within a pamphlet titled Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France, written by James Bradshaw. This document did not discuss modern economics or social mobility but rather focused on trade regulations and the movement of wool from Ireland to France. The concept of a middle class was not yet a political force or a demographic statistic; it was a phrase used to describe a specific group of people who existed between the nobility and the peasantry in late-feudal society. Friedrich Engels later analyzed this category as an intermediate social class that arose around mercantile functions in the city, distinct from the nobility who owned the countryside and the peasantry who worked it. In France, this emerging middle class, often referred to as the bourgeoisie or town-dwellers, played a pivotal role in driving the French Revolution. They eventually overthrew the ruling monarchists of feudal society, transforming themselves from an intermediate group into the new ruling class of capitalist-dominated societies. The evolution of this term from a simple descriptor of trade to a complex social identity marks the beginning of a global transformation that would reshape human history over the next three centuries.
The Statistician's Definition
The modern usage of the term middle class dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General's report, where statistician T. H. C. Stevenson identified the middle class as those falling between the upper-class and the working-class. Stevenson's definition included professionals, managers, and senior civil servants, establishing a framework that persists in many sociological studies today. The chief defining characteristic of membership in this class is control of significant human capital while still being under the dominion of the elite upper class, who control much of the financial and legal capital in the world. Within capitalism, the term initially referred to the bourgeoisie, but later, with the further differentiation of classes as capitalist societies developed, it became synonymous with the term petite bourgeoisie. The boom-and-bust cycles of capitalist economies result in the periodic and more or less temporary impoverishment and proletarianization of much of the petite bourgeois world, causing them to move back and forth between working-class and petite-bourgeois status. The typical modern definitions of middle class tend to ignore the fact that the classical petite-bourgeoisie is and has always been the owner of a small-to medium-sized business whose income is derived almost exclusively from the employment of workers. The middle class came to refer to the combination of the labour aristocracy, professionals, and salaried, white-collar workers, creating a broad middle class that can act as a counterweight against oligarchy.
When did the term middle class first appear in print?
The term middle class first appeared in print in 1745 within a pamphlet titled Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France written by James Bradshaw. This document focused on trade regulations and the movement of wool from Ireland to France rather than modern economics. The concept described a specific group of people existing between the nobility and the peasantry in late-feudal society.
Who defined the professional-managerial class in 1977?
Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich defined the professional-managerial class in 1977 as salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production. This group includes academics, teachers, social workers, engineers, accountants, managers, nurses, and middle-level administrators. Their definition distinguishes this class by their training and education which typically includes business qualifications and university degrees.
What percentage of the Chinese population was middle class in 2013?
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 420 million people or 31% of the Chinese population qualified as middle class by 2013. The World Bank definition of middle class as those having daily spending between $10 and $50 per day indicated that nearly 40% of the Chinese population were considered middle class as of 2017. This growth occurred when the Chinese middle class expanded from 15% to 62% of the population between 1990 and 2005.
How does the OECD define the middle class in the United States?
The OECD defines the middle class as households with income between 75% and 200% of the median national income. A 2010 working paper by the OECD asserted that 1.8 billion people were members of the global middle class. Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Report 2014 released in October 2014 estimated that one billion adults belonged to the middle class with wealth ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.
What is the size of the middle class in Africa according to 2014 studies?
A 2014 study by Standard Bank economist Simon Freemantle found that 15.3 million households in 11 surveyed nations of Africa are middle class. A 2014 study by the German Development Institute reported that the middle class of Sub-Saharan Africa rose from 14 million to 31 million people between 1990 and 2010. In South Africa, a report by the Institute for Race Relations in 2015 estimated that between 10% and 20% of South Africans are middle class.
In 1977, Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich defined a new class in the United States as salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor is the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations. They named this group the professional-managerial class, distinguishing it from other social classes by their training and education, which typically includes business qualifications and university degrees. Example occupations include academics and teachers, social workers, engineers, accountants, managers, nurses, and middle-level administrators. The Ehrenreichs developed their definition from studies by André Gorz, Serge Mallet, and others of a new working class, which, despite education and a perception of themselves as middle class, were part of the working class because they did not own the means of production and were wage earners paid to produce a piece of capital. The professional-managerial class seek higher rank status and salaries and tend to have incomes above the average for their country. This theoretical framework highlights the tension between the desire for status and the reality of economic dependence, creating a unique social stratum that is neither fully independent nor fully proletarian.
The Global Explosion
In February 2009, The Economist asserted that over half of the world's population now belongs to the middle class, as a result of rapid growth in emerging countries. It characterized the middle class as having a reasonable amount of discretionary income, so that they do not live from hand-to-mouth as the poor do, and defined it as beginning at the point where people have roughly a third of their income left for discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter. This allows people to buy consumer goods, improve their health care, and provide for their children's education. Most of the emerging middle class consists of people who are middle class by the standards of the developing world but not the developed one, since their money incomes do not match developed country levels, but the percentage of it which is discretionary does. By this definition, the number of middle-class people in Asia exceeded that in the West sometime around 2007 or 2008. The Economist article pointed out that in many emerging countries, the middle class has not grown incrementally but explosively. The point at which the poor start entering the middle class by the millions is alleged to be the time when poor countries get the maximum benefit from cheap labour through international trade, before they price themselves out of world markets for cheap goods. That stage was reached in China sometime between 1990 and 2005, when the Chinese middle class grew from 15% to 62% of the population and is just being reached in India now.
The American Paradox
In the United States, by the end of the twentieth century, more people identified themselves as middle-class, with insignificant numbers identifying themselves as upper-class. The Labour Party in the UK, which grew out of the organised labour movement and originally drew almost all of its support from the working-class, reinvented itself under Tony Blair in the 1990s as New Labour, a party competing with the Conservative Party for the votes of the middle-class as well as those of the Labour Party's traditional group of voters, the working-class. Around 40% of British people consider themselves to be middle class, and this number has remained relatively stable over the last few decades. However, in the United States, the definition of middle class differs significantly from other countries, often describing people who in other countries would be described as working class. According to the OECD, the middle class refers to households with income between 75% and 200% of the median national income. In 2010, a working paper by the OECD asserted that 1.8 billion people were now members of the global middle class. Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Report 2014, released in October 2014, estimated that one billion adults belonged to the middle class, with wealth anywhere between the range of $10,000 to $100,000. An April 2019 OECD report said that the millennial generation is being pushed out of the middle class throughout the Western world, highlighting the instability of this status even in developed economies.
The Asian Surge
Since the beginning of the 21st century, China's middle class has grown by significant margins. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, by 2013, some 420 million people, or 31%, of the Chinese population qualified as middle class. Based on the World Bank definition of middle class as those having with daily spending between $10 and $50 per day, nearly 40% of the Chinese population were considered middle class as of 2017. In India, estimates vary widely on the number of middle-class people. A 1983 article put the Indian middle class as somewhere between 70 and 100 million. According to one study the middle class in India stood at between 60 and 80 million by 1990. According to The Economist, 78 million of India's population are considered middle class as of 2017, if defined using the cutoff of those making more than $10 per day, a standard used by India's National Council of Applied Economic Research. If including those with incomes between $2 and $10 per day, the number increases to 604 million. This was termed by researchers as the new middle class. Measures considered include geography, lifestyle, income, and education. The World Inequality Report in 2018 further concluded that elites, i.e., the top 10%, are accumulating wealth at a greater rate than the middle class, that rather than growing, India's middle class may be shrinking in size.
The European Divide
In 2017, Andreas Reckwitz described two middle classes in Germany: the new middle class and the old middle class. The new middle class consists primarily of highly qualified academics in large cities with good career prospects, especially in the knowledge economy. Although this new middle class has a high ecological footprint, for example due to frequent air travel, it nevertheless considers ecologically responsible behavior to be important. The old middle class are people with a medium level of education, often in small-town rural regions, who tend to be conservative and traditional in their attitudes and lifestyles. In Russia, due to sustainable growth, the pre-crisis 2008 crisis level was exceeded. In 2015, research from the Russian Academy of Sciences estimated that around 15% of the Russian population are firmly middle class, while around another 25% are on the periphery. In Latin America, over the years estimates on the size of the middle class have varied. A 1960 study stated that the middle strata in Latin America as a whole, exclusive of Indians, constituted just under 20% of the national society. A 1964 study estimated that 45 million Latin Americans belonged to the urban middle class while 15 million belonged to the urban well-to-do and 8 million to the rural middle class and well-to-do. By 1970, according to one study, the middle class of Argentina comprised 38% of the economically active population, compared with 19% in Brazil and 24% in Mexico.
The African Awakening
According to a 2014 study by Standard Bank economist Simon Freemantle, a total of 15.3 million households in 11 surveyed nations of Africa are middle class: Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. In South Africa, a report conducted by the Institute for Race Relations in 2015 estimated that between 10% and 20% of South Africans are middle class, based on various criteria. An earlier study estimated that in 2008 21.3% of South Africans were members of the middle class. A study by EIU Canback indicates 90% of Africans fall below an income of $10 a day. The proportion of Africans in the $10 to $20 middle class, excluding South Africa, rose from 4.4% to only 6.2% between 2004 and 2014. Over the same period, the proportion of upper middle class income, $20 to $50 a day, went from 1.4% to 2.3%. According to a 2014 study by the German Development Institute, the middle class of Sub-Saharan Africa rose from 14 million to 31 million people between 1990 and 2010. This growth represents a significant shift in the global economic landscape, as the middle class in Africa begins to emerge from the shadows of poverty and inequality, driven by urbanization and economic reforms.