In the media
Study spurs media debate over Africa’s middle class

The middle-class in the Global South gained growing attention since the turn of the century, including some lower income groups in resource-rich African economies.

A UNU-WIDER study has been widely referred in media articles enriching the debate over the role and identity of Africa’s middle-class.

The study finds that the nature of the middle class and private sector respectively can vary substantially from the normative models of political science, shaped by local and regional contexts and histories; and that this ought to caution us against any easy or deterministic assumptions about what a growth in the size of the middle class might mean for Africa.

The paper was published under the project Africa’s emerging middle class. The project focuses on whether, and in what ways, Africa’s middle-class represents a positive force, not only for growth, poverty reduction, and socioeconomic equality, but also for greater democratization within the region.

Read the articles:

Quartz Africa, 30 April 2017: ‘It’s time to decide what being middle class in Africa really means’.

All Africa, 23 April 2017: ‘Africa: it's time to lift the ideological haze in debates about Africa's middle class’.

Times Live, 25 April 2017: ‘It’s time to lift the ideological haze in debates about Africa’s middle class’.

The Insight Newspaper, 27 April 2017: ‘How ‘classy’ is the African middle class?’.