Expanding the Middle-Income Groups, Building a Middle Class-Dominated Modern Society—Analysis and Forecast of China’s Social Conditions during the Period 2016–2017

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Lina Martínez ◽  
John Rennie Short ◽  
Maria Isabel Zafra

This paper explores consumption patterns, access to banking services, attitudes to government and aspirations of the growing and vulnerable middle class in the global South. Data comes from a population survey conducted in 2016 in Cali, Colombia. We compare middle income and lower income populations in order to establish differences and similarities. We aim to answer a basic question. What are the patterns of consumption for this new middle class and how does it compare with lower income groups? Generally speaking, we find that despite the marked differences in income levels the middle class and the poor population share similar goals and attitudes and inhabit the same urban realm.


2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Dallinger

Contributing to the debate on the decline of the middle class, this article provides a comparative and longitudinal analysis of changes to the relative position of middle income groups in 19 (post)industrial countries between 1985 and 2005. How much did the income position of the middle worsen compared with more vulnerable groups? To what extent did public policies mitigate the market position of different income groups? The analysis is based on microdata of the Luxembourg Income Study. It divides the broad category of ‘middle class’ into three groups. Results suggest little change in the income position of the middle classes with respect to both market and disposable incomes. In most countries market incomes in the top quintile increased remarkably while the bottom quintile group lost out. The scale of government income redistribution has improved the position of the lowest income group, while burdening the highest income group. But it failed to fully compensate for the growing gap between the top and bottom income groups. The distance between the middle and the top incomes grew significantly, which might be one reason for the current public debate about an endangered middle class.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
V. V. Gorshkova ◽  
A. A. Melnikova

The article considers the contradictions and conflicts that are characteristic of modern Russian society. The processes of social disintegration are analyzed and interpreted as a result of fundamental social and economic transformations. The problems of economic inequality are presented in the historical perspective in close connection with the previous stages of Russia's socioeconomic development. Significant polarization of the population is one of the most significant conflict factors in modern society, which leads to an increase in protest moods and may in the long term threaten social upheavals. Nevertheless, dissatisfaction with the socio-economic situation does not lead to ideas of the unification and consolidation of society, but find expression in social conflicts. The emergence and development of social conflicts is influenced by a number of factors: economic, ethnic, religious. One of the most important characteristics of society is its social structure. After the collapse of the USSR, the previous social structure was abolished, and a new social reality was formed in Russia. When considering the stratification structure of society, most attention is paid to the middle class, which is considered the backbone of a stable society. The middle class in Russia is in the stage of formation, it is hardly possible to speak of a complete analogy with the middle class of Western society. The share of middle class in society can be estimated in different ways depending on the methodological approaches used by researchers. An important consequence of the transformation of the social structure was the problem of marginalization, since the dismantling of the old social structure and the slow formation of the new one put the social status and place in the division of labor system of many individuals into question. The sharp impoverishment of representatives of prestigious professions led to a reassessment of their situation, especially for the younger generation. When analyzing the origins of social conflicts in modern Russian society, it is necessary to consider the issue of the attitude of the broad masses of the population to power and national elites. It should be noted that power in Russia historically takes shape around specific leaders and does not have an institutional character. The most significant factor shaping the attitude towards the authorities and the elite in general in Russian society are the economic results of the market reforms that have taken place. Only a small part of the population believes that they won as a result of the changes that have taken place, the natural consequence of which is the population's distrust of the authorities and, in general, political institutions.


Author(s):  
Francesco P. Cappuccio ◽  
Michelle A. Miller ◽  
Steven W. Lockley ◽  
Shantha M. W. Rajaratnam

Sleep disturbances are common in modern society. Since the beginning of the century, populations have shown a decline in sleep duration, owing to changes in environmental and social conditions. Industry was the first to appreciate the detrimental effects of sleep disturbances on health and wellbeing. It has taken, however, many decades to understand the implications for individuals and populations of sustained sleep deprivation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao-Ning Li ◽  
Ying Feng ◽  
Pei-Ying Wu ◽  
Yung-Ho Chiu

This research adopts the meta Dynamic Directional Distance Functions (DDF) model in order to calculate the environmental efficiency and environmental governance efficiency of China’s industrial sector from 2010 to 2017 from the overall, sub-regional, and sub-provincial perspectives and discusses the technical gaps in regional environmental pollution control and the reasons for ineffective environmental governance. The research results show that the overall level of environmental governance efficiency in China’s industrial sector is relatively high over this time period, and the group frontier calculation results have improved compared to the meta frontier. The actual technical level of the high-income group is closest to the potential technical level, and the upper-middle income group is still far from the potential technical level. The main reason for the ineffective environmental governance of the provinces in the high-income group is ineffective management, while the main reason for ineffective environmental governance of the provinces in the upper-middle-income groups is technical inefficiency. Regardless of high-income groups or upper-middle-income groups, each province’s inefficiency of environmental governance is caused by inefficiency of the input factors.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Goran Ivo Marinovic

In the case of conventional public housing, urban planners and policymakers design the layout of a housing project in a specific location and then estimate how many households can afford a home. This housing policy has been pursued as a legitimate solution for housing low- and middle-income households where the houses are individually financed by bank loans or mortgages raised by the occupants. John Turner criticised conventional housing solutions by affirming that ‘developing governments take the perspective of the elite and act as if the process of low-income houses were the same as in high-income countries and the same as for the small upper-middle class of their own countries’. Bruce Ferguson and Jesus Navarrete extend this argument with their critique of distributing finished houses to low-income populations and then requiring long-term payments, which are harmful to the beneficiaries. They note that ‘governments think of housing as complete units built by developers that households must purchase with a long-term loan rather than as a progressive process’.


Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 199
Author(s):  
Olimjon Saidmamatov ◽  
Inna Rudenko ◽  
Urs Baier ◽  
Elbek Khodjaniyazov

Energy plays an essential role in the modern society and can serve as one of the vital parameters of socio-economic development. Despite developments in technology, over three billion persons living in rural parts of the low- and middle-income countries continue to cover their energy needs for cooking through traditional ways by burning biomass resources. This paper as a case study focuses on the Aral Sea region of Uzbekistan, possessing a well-developed agricultural production with high livestock numbers and intensive crop production. The manure of the livestock farms is not used efficiently and the energy supply of the farms depends primarily on centrally produced gas and electricity. Some areas are not yet connected to the gas grid. Agriculture causes huge environmental damages in its current form. The benefit of biogas production would therefore be fivefold: (1) local energy source, (2) mitigation of environmental impacts, (3) reducing CH4-emissions, (4) producing organic fertilizer as a side product and (5) additional earnings for farmers.


2019 ◽  
pp. 50-65
Author(s):  
Francesco Farina ◽  
Chiara Assunta Ricci

The scientific evaluation of the relationship between growth, redistribution, and the income share of the middle class is still in its infancy. This article aims to investigate how the drivers of economic growth impinge on market income distribution and how the middle class has a role in deciding the level of redistribution. Our strategy is to dodge the reverse causality problem, stemming from the bi-directional relation between income distribution and growth, by exploiting the peculiar feature of different indicators of income dispersion focused on the middle income group. The findings reveal that market forces and redistributive policies are both pivotal in shaping the evolution of income dispersion and in particular the income share of the middle class, over the growth process. The ability of redistributive policies to counteract the ongoing increase in income inequality seems to depend not only on the political pressure exerted by an impoverishing median voter but also on the expansion of fiscal revenues after sustained Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.


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