Abstract
Traditionally, economists measure middle class from the income perspective. Considering quality of data for many African countries, relying solely on income may, unfortunately, lead to an incorrect picture. This article compares and analyses the African middle class measured by income and by ownership of assets. Results indicate that middle class sizes differ significantly in some countries, while in others they are more or less the same. Regression analyses performed to investigate potential correlates of the African income and assets middle class sizes indicate that the African assets middle class size is positively associated with income per capita and negatively with assets inequality. To a lesser extent, it is positively affected by education and negatively by ethnic fractionalisation. The African income middle class size depends positively on income per capita and education, while negatively on income inequality.
Highlights
The debate on how large the middle class is in developing countries, or in Africa in particular, has been going on for some time
We explore in which African countries assets are more or less distributed when compared to income, how this affects the size of the middle class according to these measures and whether there is an association between inequalities and the income- and assets middle class size
We investigate to what extent the composition of income- and assets middle class differ according to the three main middle class sub- categories defined by the African Development Bank (AfDB, 2011): the floating, lowerand upper-m iddle class and how the differences in both middle class sizes change when the floating middle class is excluded
Summary
The debate on how large the middle class is in developing countries, or in Africa in particular, has been going on for some time. The worldwide interest has been provoked mostly since the 1990s with the rapid evolution of the middle class in some Asian and Latin American countries. Another factor was the rising number of studies underlying the role of the middle class in economic development Neo-W eberian and Neo-M arxist theories of class represent two influential perspectives on the middle class. Both emphasise the importance of market capacities in shaping life opportunities and how the middle class differs from the working class and the upper class in this dimension (Fitzpatrick, 2012). According to Bourdieu, it is the educational system which reproduces the existing social class and does not serve, as naturally expected, as a social mobility factor (Dumais, 2015)
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