Latin Americas Middle Class

Author : Francisco H. G. Ferreira
Publisher : World Bank Publications
ISBN 13 : 0821397230
Total Pages : 203 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : David Stuart Parker
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 0739168533
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : Omar Pereyra
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739191071
Total Pages : 159 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : J. Dayton-Johnson
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137320796
Total Pages : 181 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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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 181 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.

Author : Beatriz Armendariz
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262337878
Total Pages : 461 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : OECD
Publisher : OECD Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9264094652
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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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 176 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.

Author : Isabel V. Sawhill
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
ISBN 13 : 0815725590
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : Diego Sánchez-Ancochea
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1838606254
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Costs of Inequality in Latin America written by Diego Sánchez-Ancochea and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the United States to the United Kingdom and from China to India, growing inequality has led to social discontent and the emergence of populist parties, also contributing to economic crises. We urgently need a better understanding of the roots and costs of these income gaps. The Costs of Inequality draws on the experience of Latin America, one of the most unequal regions of the world, to demonstrate how inequality has hampered economic growth, contributed to a lack of good jobs, weakened democracy, and led to social divisions and mistrust. In turn, low growth, exclusionary politics, violence and social mistrust have reinforced inequality, generating various vicious circles. Latin America thus provides a disturbing image of what the future may hold in other countries if we do not act quickly. It also provides some useful lessons on how to fight income concentration and build more equitable societies.

Author : Mario Barbosa Cruz
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 100060568X
Total Pages : 604 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : Miguel A. Centeno
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107311306
Total Pages : 485 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book State and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain: Volume 1 written by Miguel A. Centeno and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-29 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The growth of institutional capacity in the developing world has become a central theme in twenty-first-century social science. Many studies have shown that public institutions are an important determinant of long-run rates of economic growth. This book argues that to understand the difficulties and pitfalls of state building in the contemporary world, it is necessary to analyze previous efforts to create institutional capacity in conflictive contexts. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the process of state and nation building in Latin America and Spain from independence to the 1930s. The book examines how Latin American countries and Spain tried to build modern and efficient state institutions for more than a century - without much success. The Spanish and Latin American experience of the nineteenth century was arguably the first regional stage on which the organizational and political dilemmas that still haunt states were faced. This book provides an unprecedented perspective on the development and contemporary outcome of those state and nation-building projects.