Male Unemployment and the Struggle against Disqualification among Middle-Class Couples in Bujumbura

The discussion on the existence of social classes in Africa is recent, and the different facets of the issue are under-researched. The challenges in defining them stem from the limits of statistical data and the complexity of the African context when it comes to the question of measurement. Nonetheless, these challenges do not prevent us from considering social classes as a reality in Africa, and particularly “the middle class†as a concept of focus. Using an ethnographic approach and focusing on unemployment, this study aims to show empirically how these boundaries are demarcated. If households with a regular income and living their normal lives worry about downgrading of their quality of life, it is amplified in those faced with unemployment, particularly when it affects the husband, traditionally considered the sole or main provider of household needs. A closer look at the experience of couples faced with the husband’s unemployment, reveals that they do not give up their idea of belonging to the “middle class†, and that the members close to the unemployed man, including his wife and relatives, resort to a variety of strategies to try to preserve the boundaries. This article analyzes how the discourse on the middle class feeds collective imaginaries, and how it informs the positioning of individuals in social space in the Bujumbura city. Similarly, the paper argues for a class analysis that focuses on the “household†rather than the “individual†category. This shift points out that the situation of unemployment makes visible the often-obscured role of women in this kind of analysis.