Download or read book Economic Mobility and the Rise of the Latin American Middle Class written by Francisco H. G. Ferreira and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-11-09 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After decades of stagnation, the size of Latin America's middle class recently expanded to the point where, for the first time ever, the number of people in poverty is equal to the size of the middle class. This volume investigates the nature, determinants and possible consequences of this remarkable process of social transformation. We propose an original definition of the middle class, tailor-made for Latin America, centered on the concept of economic security and thus a low probability of falling into poverty. Given our definition of the middle class, there are four, not three, classes in Latin America. Sandwiched between the poor and the middle class there lies a large group of people who appear to make ends meet well enough, but do not enjoy the economic security that would be required for membership of the middle class. We call this group the 'vulnerable'. In an almost mechanical sense, these transformations in Latin America reflect both economic growth and declining inequality in over the period. We adopt a measure of mobility that decomposes the 'gainers' and 'losers' in society by social class of each household. The continent has experienced a large amount of churning over the last 15 years, at least 43% of all Latin Americans changed social classes between the mid 1990s and the end of the 2000s. Despite the upward mobility trend, intergenerational mobility, a better proxy for inequality of opportunity, remains stagnant. Educational achievement and attainment remain to be strongly dependent upon parental education levels. Despite the recent growth in pro-poor programs, the middle class has benefited disproportionally from social security transfers and are increasingly opting out from government services. Central to the region's prospects of continued progress will be its ability to harness the new middle class into a new, more inclusive social contract, where the better-off pay their fair share of taxes, and demand improved public services.

Download or read book Latin America s Middle Class written by David Stuart Parker and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As middle classes in developing countries grow in size and political power, do they foster stable democracies and prosperous, innovative economies? Or do they encourage crass materialism, bureaucratic corruption, unrealistic social demands, and ideological polarization? These questions have taken on a new urgency in recent years but they are not new, having first appeared in the mid twentieth century in debates about Latin America. At a moment when exploding middle classes in the global South increasingly capture the world's attention, these Latin American classics are ripe for revisiting. Part One of the book introduces key debates from the 1950s and 1960s, when Cold War era scholars questioned whether or not the middle class would be a force for democracy and development, to safeguard Latin America against the perceived challenge of Revolutionary Cuba. While historian John J. Johnson placed tentative faith in the positive transformative power of the "middle sectors," others were skeptical. The striking disagreements that emerge from these texts lend themselves to discussion about the definition, character, and complexity of the middle classes, and about the assumptions that underpinned twentieth-century modernization theory. Part Two brings together more recent case studies from Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina, written by scholars influenced by contemporary trends in social and cultural history. These authors highlight issues of language, identity, gender, and the multiple faces and forms of power. Their studies bring flesh-and-blood Latin Americans to the forefront, reconstructing the daily lives of underpaid office workers, harried housewives and striving professionals, in order to revisit questions that the authors in Part One tended to approach abstractly. They also pay attention to changing cultural understandings and political constructions of who "the middle class" is and what it means to be middle class. Designed with the classroom and non-specialist reader in mind, the book has a comprehensive critical introduction, and each selection is preceded by a short description setting the context and introducing key themes.

Download or read book Contemporary Middle Class in Latin America written by Omar Pereyra and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last decades, the Latin American middle class is growing in size while becoming more heterogeneous. Sustained economic growth explains its increasing size, but behind its heterogeneity there is not only the diversification of lifestyles, but also the crystallization of a large process of upward social mobility of second and third generation migrants to capital cities and their incorporation into middle-class positions. In the last decades, these individuals are now part of the different spheres of socialization formerly occupied by the traditional middle class: private schools, college and universities, middle-class jobs and occupations, and traditional middle-class neighborhoods. To explore the genesis of this phenomenon and its consequences, the author studies Residential San Felipe, a quintessential traditional middle-class neighborhood in Lima, Peru, which is currently receiving an important influx of upwardly mobile families. The case of San Felipe shows that inside the contemporary middle class a strong boundary between the “traditional middle class” and the “new middle class” permeates the everyday life of the neighborhood. However, though this difference between the “traditional” and “new middle class” is recognized by all residents of San Felipe, its relevance as well as the elements at the basis of this distinction varies.

Download or read book Latin America s Emerging Middle Classes written by J. Dayton-Johnson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politicians, business leaders and citizens look with hope to the Latin American middle class for political stability and purchasing power, but the economic position of the middle class remains vulnerable. The contributors document the remarkable emergence of this middle group in Latin America, whose measurement turns out not to be an easy task.

Download or read book Latin American Economic Outlook 2011 How Middle Class Is Latin America written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2010-12-03 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This year's Latin American Economic Outlook includes a macroeconomic overview of the ongoing economic recovery from the global financial crisis as well as an in-depth report on the middle class in Latin America.

Download or read book Being Middle Class in Latin America written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Generation Unbound written by Isabel V. Sawhill and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2014-09-25 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over half of all births to young adults in the United States now occur outside of marriage, and many are unplanned. The result is increased poverty and inequality for children. The left argues for more social support for unmarried parents; the right argues for a return to traditional marriage. In Generation Unbound, Isabel V. Sawhill offers a third approach: change "drifters" into "planners." In a well-written and accessible survey of the impact of family structure on child well-being, Sawhill contrasts "planners," who are delaying parenthood until after they marry, with "drifters," who are having unplanned children early and outside of marriage. These two distinct patterns are contributing to an emerging class divide and threatening social mobility in the United States. Sawhill draws on insights from the new field of behavioral economics, showing that it is possible, by changing the default, to move from a culture that accepts a high number of unplanned pregnancies to a culture in which adults only have children when they are ready to be a parent.

Download or read book The Middle Classes in Latin America written by Mario Barbosa Cruz and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-07-13 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a collective effort, this volume locates the formation of the middle classes at the core of the histories of Latin America in the last two centuries. Featuring scholars from different places across the Americas, it is an interdisciplinary contribution to the world histories of the middle classes, histories of Latin America, and intersectional studies. It also engages a larger audience about the importance of the middle classes to understand modernity, democracy, neoliberalism, and decoloniality. By including research produced from a variety of Latin American, North American, and other audiences, the volume incorporates trends in social history, cultural studies and discursive theory. It situates analytical categories of race and gender at the core of class formation. This volume seeks to initiate a critical and global conversation concerning the ways in which the analysis of the middle classes provides crucial re-readings of how Latin America, as a region, has historically been understood.

Download or read book A Note on the Middle Class in Latin America written by Nancy Birdsall and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper sets out basic information on the middle class in eight Latin American countries over the last two decades. The middle class is identified as people living in households with income per capita between $10 and $50 per day, adjusted for purchasing power parity. This income-based definition is conceptually and empirically grounded in the analysis of household surveys and is used to provide a region-wide profile of households that are neither vulnerable to falling into back into poverty nor rich by their national standards. In the countries studied, the population share of the middle class increased from 20 to 30 percent and its income share increased from 40 to nearly 50 percent (from about 1990 to 2010). Adults in the typical middle-class household in Latin America have at least some secondary education, and all children in those households go to school -- many to private school. Adults are likely to be employees in urban, formal jobs, and less likely than their richer counterparts to hold jobs in the public sector. Though rich in relative terms (mostly in the top quintile of their national income distributions), they are closer in median income to the majority of households that are poorer than to the small minority that are richer. To close on an optimistic note, the profiles tell a story of an increasingly educated, middle-class region, in which a growing proportion of the population is relatively secure in the escape from poverty, while probably more reliant than the rich on the rule of law and stable and effective government. In the long run, that suggests that the middle class is likely to support market-friendly, poverty-reducing social and economic reforms.

Download or read book The Economics of Contemporary Latin America written by Beatriz Armendariz and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analysis of Latin America's economy focusing on development, covering the colonial roots of inequality, boom and bust cycles, labor markets, and fiscal and monetary policy. Latin America is richly endowed with natural resources, fertile land, and vibrant cultures. Yet the region remains much poorer than its neighbors to the north. Most Latin American countries have not achieved standards of living and stable institutions comparable to those found in developed countries, have experienced repeated boom-bust cycles, and remain heavily reliant on primary commodities. This book studies the historical roots of Latin America's contemporary economic and social development, focusing on poverty and income inequality dating back to colonial times. It addresses today's legacies of the market-friendly reforms that took hold in the 1980s and 1990s by examining successful stabilizations and homemade monetary and fiscal institutional reforms. It offers a detailed analysis of trade and financial liberalization, twenty–first century-growth, and the decline in poverty and income inequality. Finally, the book offers an overall analysis of inclusive growth policies for development—including gender issues and the informal sector—and the challenges that lie ahead for the region, with special attention to pressing demands by the vibrant and vocal middle class, youth unemployment, and indigenous populations.

Download or read book Asset Accumulation by the Middle Class and the Poor in Latin America written by Andrés Solimano and published by UN. This book was released on 2006 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper highlights missing components of current social policies in Latin America that affect the political-economy equilibrium: in particular, the neglect of the middle class as valid subject of social policy, the persistence of income and wealth inequality in a context of moderate growth and the need to put more emphasis on asset accumulation by the poor and the middle class. The paper provides economic and political economy rationales for devising new policies that could correct this neglect. Publishing Agency: United Nations (UN).

Download or read book The Middle Class in World Society written by Christian Suter and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume delves into the study of the world’s emerging middle class. With essays on Europe, the United States, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the book studies recent trends and developments in middle class evolution at the global, regional, national, and local levels. It reconsiders the conceptualization of the middle class, with a focus on the diversity of middle class formation in different regions and zones of world society. It also explores middle class lifestyles and everyday experiences, including experiences of social mobility, feelings of insecurity and anxiety, and even middle class engagement with social activism. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews, the book provides a sophisticated analysis of this new and rapidly expanding socioeconomic group and puts forth some provocative ideas for intellectual and policy debates. It will be of importance to students and researchers of sociology, economics, development studies, political studies, Latin American studies, and Asian Studies.

Download or read book Mexico s Middle Class in the Neoliberal Era written by Dennis Gilbert and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mexico’s modern middle class emerged in the decades after World War II, a period of spectacular economic growth and social change. Though little studied, the middle class now accounts for one in five Mexican households. This path-breaking book explores the changing fortunes and political transformation of the middle class, especially during the last two decades, as Mexico has adopted new, market-oriented economic policies and has abandoned one-party rule. Blending the personal narratives of middle-class Mexicans with analyses of national surveys of households and voters, Dennis Gilbert traces the development of the middle class since the 1940s. He describes how middle-class Mexicans were affected by the economic upheavals of the 1980s and 1990s and examines their shifting relations with the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Long faithful to the PRI, the middle class gradually grew disenchanted. Gilbert examines middle-class reactions to the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, the 1982 debt crisis, the government’s feeble response to the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, and its brazen manipulation of the vote count in the 1988 presidential election. Drawing on detailed interviews with Mexican families, he describes the effects of the 1994–95 peso crisis on middle-class households and their economic and political responses to it. His analysis of exit poll data from the 2000 elections shows that the lopsided middle-class vote in favor of opposition candidate Vicente Fox played a critical role in the election that drove the PRI from power after seven decades. The book closes with an epilogue on the middle class and the July 2006 presidential elections.

Download or read book Land of the Fee written by Devin Fergus and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-08 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The loans ordinary Americans take out to purchase homes and attend college often leave them in a sea of debt. As Devin Fergus explains in Land of the Fee, a not-insignificant portion of that debt comes in the form of predatory hidden fees attached to everyday transactions. Beginning in the 1980s, lobbyists for the financial industry helped dismantle consumer protections, resulting in surreptitious fees-often waived for those who can afford them but not for those who can't. Bluntly put, these hidden fees unfairly keep millions of Americans from their hard-earned money. Journalists and policymakers have identified the primary causes of increasing wealth inequality-fewer good working class jobs, a rise in finance-driven speculative capitalism, and a surge of tax policy decisions that benefit the ultra-rich, among others. However, they miss one commonplace but substantial contributor to the widening divide between the rich and the rest: the explosion of fees on every transaction people make in their daily lives. Land of the Fee traces the system of fees from its origins in the deregulatory wave of the late 1970s to the present. The average consumer now pays a dizzying array of charges for mortgage contracts, banking transactions, auto insurance rates, college payments, and payday loans. These fees are buried in the pages of small-print agreements that few consumers read or understand. Because these fees do not fall under usury laws, they have redistributed wealth to large corporations and their largest shareholders. By exposing this predatory and nearly invisible system of fees, Land of the Fee reshapes our understanding of wealth inequality in America.

Download or read book Innovation and Inclusion in Latin America written by Alejandro Foxley and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-06-06 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that Latin America must confront two main challenges: greater innovation to increase productivity, and greater inclusion to incorporate more of the population into the benefits of economic growth. These two tasks are interrelated, and both require greater institutional capacity to facilitate both innovation and inclusion. Most countries in Latin America are struggling to escape what economists label “the middle income trap.” While much if not all of the region has emerged from low income status, neither growth nor productivity has increased sufficiently to enable Latin America to narrow the gap separating it from the world’s most developed economies. Although income inequality has diminished across much of the region in recent years, social vulnerability remains widespread and institutional weaknesses continue to plague efforts to achieve equitable development. This volume identifies lessons that can be learned and adapted from experiences within the region and in East Asia, where the middle income trap has largely been avoided. This book is the result of a collaborative project undertaken by American University’s Center for Latin American & Latino Studies (CLALS) and the Corporation for Latin American Studies (CIEPLAN) in Chile, with financial support from the Inter-American Development Bank’s Office of Strategic Planning and Development Effectiveness.

Download or read book How s Life in Latin America Measuring Well being for Policy Making written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-28 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Latin American countries have experienced improvements in income over recent decades, with several of them now classified as high-income or upper middle-income in terms of conventional metrics. But has this change been mirrored in improvements across the different areas of people’s lives? How’s Life in Latin America? Measuring Well-being for Policy Making addresses this question by presenting comparative evidence for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with a focus on 11 LAC countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay).

Download or read book A New Contract with the Middle Class written by Richard V. Reeves and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 51 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A better future for the middle class is no longer an aspiration. It is a necessity. The disintegration of the American Dream is more visible than ever before. The understanding—the contract—that existed between individuals willing to work and contribute and a society willing to support those individuals when they needed it is falling apart. Now is the time to draft a new contract with America's middle class. One that rewards work and service, improves upward mobility, and reduces inequality. In A New Contract with the Middle Class Brookings senior fellows Isabel Sawhill and Richard Reeves outline the foundations of what that new contract should be, based on discussions they had across the country with middle-class Americans. Sawhill and Reeves' recommendations provide solutions to issues that came up time and time again in these conversations: money, time, relationships, health, and respect. Some of the bold recommendations included in A New Contract with the Middle Class: • Eliminate virtually all income taxes paid by the middle class. • Raise the minimum wage and subsidize wages below the median with a worker tax credit. • Offer scholarships for those who undertake at least a year of national service. • Ensure four weeks of paid leave per year. • Align school and working hours and boost child care to help working parents. America is only as strong as the American middle-class. A New Contract with the Middle Class proposes a new way forward.