While the middle class is shrinking in many western countries, the global outlook sets a rather different picture. According to Brookings Institute which analyzed data from the World Data Lab, the vast majority of the next billion people escaping economic vulnerability will come from Asia. As our graphic illustrates, almost 87 percent of the new entrants are expected to be from the region, set to fuel the economy with the strong consumer demand that the middle classes bring.
By mid-2017, around 3.3 billion people belonged to this global social stratum which is today the world’s largest. Continuing to rise up to 5 million by 2027 as predicted will mean that 60 percent of the global population will belong to the middle class (earning between 11 and 110 USD per day).
