Abstract
The author argues from a political science perspective that middle classes in Africa are an ‘elusive reality’, one that results largely from a debate conducted by international organizations and African political actors. The socioeconomic criteria applied in this debate make it doubtful that these middle classes exist outside of theoretical constructions. The author argues that the notion of the African middle class is attractive for a wide range of actors in politics and development organizations because this branding process transforms persons living on the positive side of the poverty line into a promising ‘middle class’ with the potential to lead economic and political development. However, even if an African middle class does not exist as a social fact, the debate surrounding its ‘rise’ does draw attention to deep structural transformations in twenty-first century African societies. This chapter follows the genesis of the debate about new African middle classes, identifies the actors involved in the debate, and presents a novel categorization of the middle classes in Africa, which goes beyond a purely quantitative description.
Notes
- 1.
As Kharas (2010) defines it, the global middle class has a yearly per capita income of US$4000–17,000 (PPP, ref. 2000). In the year 2000 7.6 per cent of the world’s population met this criterion, but by 2030, he expects that this figure will rise to 19.4 per cent, and that Africans will represent 2 per cent of the global middle class.
- 2.
Phadi and Ceruti (2011) show that the South Africa n situation again differs from the general pattern. In Soweto, 66 per cent did call themselves member of the middle class. They perceived themselves moreover as ‘working class’ because they contrast their position to that of those who are poor and unemployed.
- 3.
In Asia the percentage of people who could be defined as a ‘floating class’ is much smaller. For China (2007) this would apply to 23.4 per cent of the total population and 9.4 per cent of the urban population (ADB 2010, 9, Table 2.5)
- 4.
The floating class comprised of 12 percent of the population in 1980, it has risen to 21 per cent in 2010, with the biggest increase taking place in the time since 2000 (AfDB 2011, 3).
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Darbon, D. (2018). Turning the Poor into Something more Inspiring: The Creation of the African Middle Class Controversy. In: Kroeker, L., O'Kane, D., Scharrer, T. (eds) Middle Classes in Africa. Frontiers of Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62148-7_2
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