IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/brikps/6733.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Latin American Middle Class: Fragile After All?

Author

Listed:
  • Castellani, Francesca
  • Parent, Gwenn
  • Zenteno, Jannet

Abstract

This paper joins in the debate on the size of the middle class in Latin America, providing an analysis of its structure and characteristics. Using several measurements, it finds that 40-60 percent of Latin American households are middle class, a share which has consolidated over the past decade. The analysis reveals that gender, age, and education are associated with the likelihood of being middle class. The example of Colombia illustrates that, while growing in size, this income group still faces deficits in crucial dimensions of well-being, such as education, job formality, and health care, which are generally associated with being middle class. The analysis reveals the fragility of this emerging group in the region.

Suggested Citation

  • Castellani, Francesca & Parent, Gwenn & Zenteno, Jannet, 2014. "The Latin American Middle Class: Fragile After All?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6733, Inter-American Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:6733
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/The-Latin-American-Middle-Class-Fragile-After-All.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lina Martínez & John Rennie Short & Maria Isabel Zafra, 2019. "A Fragile Hold on Consumption: Consumption and the New Middle Class in Colombia," Review of European Studies, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(3), pages 1-73, December.
    2. Sébastien CARRERE & Matthieu CLEMENT & François COMBARNOUS & Gabriel KESSLER & Eric ROUGIER & Ariel WILKIS, 2022. "The middle class in Argentina: dynamics, characteristics and implications for public policies," Working Paper 83de5468-cd86-4702-a4a8-6, Agence française de développement.
    3. Matthieu Clément & Yves-André Faure & Jean-Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous & Dominique Darbon & Eric Rougier, 2018. "Anatomie de la classe moyenne brésilienne : identification, caractérisation et implications pour les politiques publiques," Working Papers hal-02147850, HAL.
    4. Clément, Matthieu & Rougier, Eric & Berrou, Jean-Philippe & Combarnous, François & Darbon, Dominique, 2022. "“What’s in the middle”: Scratching beneath the surface of the middle class(es) in Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Turkey and Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    5. Jean-Philippe Berrou & Matthieu Clément & François Combarnous & Dominique Darbon & Yves-André Faure & Eric Rougier, 2019. "L’essor des classes moyennes dans les pays en développement et émergents : une étude comparative des enjeux d’identification, de caractérisation et de politiques publiques," Working Papers hal-02147531, HAL.
    6. Ajzenman, Nicolás & Balza, Lenin & Bejarano, Hernan & De Los Rios, Camilo & Gómez Parra, Nicolás, 2023. "Seemingly irrelevant factors and willingness to block polluting investments," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13325, Inter-American Development Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Middle class;

    JEL classification:

    • D - Microeconomics
    • I - Health, Education, and Welfare

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:6733. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.