Resources on the middle class
April 21, 2025
The international discussion on the middle class is taking place on many levels. The table here contains a number of institutional reports, research papers and other sources that The Broker’s editors have found useful in preparing the Middle Class Dossier. We hope that this overview can help you dig deeper into the subject. The list is divided in five categories: 1) Primary data, 2) Reports of international organizations, institutional, and private sector, 3) Articles of experts on popular media, 4) Scholarly articles and white papers, and 5) Articles and dossiers published by (multi)media.
I. Primary data on middle class development
| Title | Author/Institution | Year of Publication |
| National Working Conditions Survey | TNO / CBS | 2013 |
| Arbeidsmarkt Prognose 2014 - 2015 [Dutch] | UVW | May 2014 |
| PovCal Net online poverty analysis tool | World Bank | 2013 |
| Luxembourg Income Study LIS Data on “Inequality and Poverty” | Cross-National Data Center Luxembourg | 2014 |
| Panel Study of Income Dynamics PSID | University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research | 2014 |
| World Bank Categorization Country & Lending Groups | World Bank | 2014 |
| Income Inequality Statistics | Eurostat | July 2014 |
II. Reports of international organizations, institutions, and private sector on middle classes
| Title | Author/Institution | Year of Publication |
| The Impending Collapse of the European Urban Middle Class: The European Union’s Denaturing of Space and Place | Guy Lanoue, Vincent Mirza, Jorge Pantaleon | 2011 |
| Eurofound yearbook 2013: Living and working in Europe | Eurofound | 2013 |
| Arm, ärmer, am ärmsten Menschen mit niedrigem Einkommen steigen immer häufiger ab [German] | Jan Paul Heisig & Martin Ehlert [German Development Institute] | 2011 |
| The Middle Class in Europe: Evidence from the LIS Data | Régis Bigot, Patricia Croutte & Jörg Muller (Crédoc), Guillaume Osier [STATEC & LIS] | 2012 |
| Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth | OECD | 2014 |
| Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising | OECD | 2011 |
| The Developing World’s Bulging (But Vulnerable) Middle Class | Martin Ravallion [World Bank] | 2009 |
| In Search of the Global Middle Class. A New Index | Urid Dadush & Shimelse Ali [Carnegie Foundation] | 2012 |
| Drivers of recent job polarisation and upgrading in Europe - European Jobs Monitor 2014 | Enrique Fernández-Macías & John Hurley [Eurofound] | 2014 |
| On the Identification of the Middle Class | Anthony B. Atkinson & Andrea Brandolini [ECINE, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality] | 2011 |
| Europe's Societal Challenges: An analysis of global societal trends to 2030 and their impact on the EU | Stijn Hoorens et al. [RAND CorporationEurope] | 2013 |
| Capturing the world’s emerging middle class | David Court & Laxman Narasimhan [McKinsey Quarterly] | 2010 |
| The making of the middle class in Africa | Mthuli Ncube & Abebe Shimeles [African Development Bank] | 2012 |
| Social Justice in the EU - A Cross-National Comparison | Social Inclusion Monitor Europe (SIM), Index Report | 2014 |
| A Vulnerability Approach to the Definition of the Middle Class | Louis F. Lopez-Calva & Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez [The World Bank] | 2011 |
| White Working Class Communities in Amsterdam | Saskia Welschen [Open Society Foundation] | July 2014 |
| On Social Class, Anno 2014 | Mike Savage, Fiona Devine, Niall Cunningham, et al | 2014 |
| The Dutch labour market during the Great Recession | CBP Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis | June 2014 |
| A Dozen Facts about America’s Struggling Lower-Middle-Class | Melissa Kearney, Benjamin Harris, Elisa Jácome, and Lucie Parker [Brookings] | December 2013 |
| Digital life in 2025. AI, Robotics and the Future of Jobs | Aaron Smith, Janna Anderson [Pew Research Center] | August 2014 |
| Allianz Global Wealth Report 2014 | Kathrin Brandmeir, Dr. Michaela Grimm, Dr. Michael Heise, Dr. Arne Holzhausen [Allianz Group] | 2014 |
| From the Bottom of the Pyramid to Emerging Middle Classes in Latin America | Sarah Boumphrey [Euromonitor International] | 2014 |
| What Opportunities Does Africa’s Rising Middle Class Present? | An Hodgson [Euromonitor International] | February 2013 |
| Consumer Aspirations Study of 5,000 emerging affluent and affluent consumers across Indonesia, India, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya [powerpoint] | Standard Chartered | June 2014 |
| The Lost Decade of the Middle Class. Fewer, Poorer, Gloomier | Pew Social Research | August 12, 2025 |
| Asian Affluence: The Emerging 21st Century Middle Class | Morgan Stanley Africa | June 2011 |
| Emerging middle class in “fast-track” mode | BBVA, Economic Watch | 2013 |
| An Emerging Middle Class | Mario Pezzini [OECD Observer, OECD Development Center] | 2012 |
| EU Employment and Social Situation | European Commission, Social Europe Quarterly Review, Publications Office of the European Union | September 2014 |
| Is Europe Losing Its Soul? The European Social Model in Times of Crisis | Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead [ILO] | January 2015 |
| Global Income Inequality by the Numbers: in History and Now | Branko Milanovic [World Bank] | 2012 |
| Household Debt Advisory Services in the European Union | Eurofound | 2012 |
| Think differently. Humanitarian Impacts of the Economic Crisis in Europe | International Federation of the Red Cross | 2013 |
| Quality of Life in Europe: Impacts of the Crisis | Robert Anderson, Hans Dubois, Tadas Leoncikas, Eszter Sandor [Eurofound] | 2012 |
| The European Social Model in times of Economic Crisis and Austerity Policies. Portugal | Pilar González, António Figueiredo [ILO presentation] | 2014 |
| From Public Sector Worker in Portugal to Cleaner in Switzerland | ILO, Feature Report European Labour Migration | September 20, 2024 |
| Riders on the Storm. Britain’s Middle Income Household since 2007 | Nida Broughton, Onyinye Ezeyi, Claudia Hupkau [Social Market Foundation] | April 7, 2025 |
| The Low-Wage Recovery: Industry Employment and Wages Four Years into the Recovery | National Employment Law Project | April 2014 |
| Economic Mobility and the Rise of the Latin American Middle Class | Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Julian Messina, Jamele Rigolini et al. [The World Bank] | 2013 |
| Making progressive policy works | Policy Network | April 2014 |
III. Articles of experts on popular media
| Title | Author/Institution | Year of Publication |
| Middle Class Stagnation | Susan E. Mayer [Boston Review] | 2012 |
| Who Is Middle Class? | Joshua Keating [Slate] | June 2014 |
| A slippery ladder: 2.8bn people on the brink | Shawn Donnan, Ben Bland and John Burn-Murdoch [The Financial Times] | April 2014 |
| Even Sweatshops are Getting Automated. So What’s Left? | Andre McAfee”s Blog: The Business Impact of IT | May 2014 |
| How unequal are the Netherlands? [in Dutch] | Monique Kremer, M. Bovens, E. Schrijvers en R. Went [WWR Verkenning] | 2014 |
| Is the British Middle Class an Endangered Species? | Andy Beckett [The Guardian] | 2010 |
| Wealth without workers, workers without wealth | The Economist | October 4th, 2014 |
| Two numbers that show how badly America’s middle class is hurting | VoxEU | August 25, 2025 |
| The Global Middle Class is Bigger Than We Thought | Ali Shimelse, Dadush Uri [Foreign Policy] | May 16, 2025 |
| Winners of Globalization: The Rich and The Chinese Middle Class. Losers: The American Middle Class | Branko Milanovic [Huffington Post] | November 2014 |
| How Did Canada’s Middle Class Get So Rich? | Derek Thompson [The Atlantic] | April 2014 |
| The Rise of the Global Middle Class | Linda Yueh [BBC] | June 18, 2025 |
| The Great Recession and the Middle Class. Four Experts Debate What’s Next for America | The Atlantic | August 2011 |
| Maechtige Oligarchen, arme Mittelschicht [German] | Deutsche Welle | January 17, 2025 |
| The Middle Class is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World. | Nelson D. Schwartz [The New York Times] | February 2, 2025 |
| Developing world's middle class is growing – but so is its 'near poor' | Nick Mead [The Guardian] | 30 January, 2013 |
| More Redistribution, Less Income | Wall Street Journal | Nov 23, 2024 |
| The Great Middle Class Identity Crisis | Simon Kuper [Financial Times] | November 8, 2024 |
| The Recession Blew A Hole in Middle-Class Jobs | Bryce Covert [Think Progress] | May 26, 2025 |
| One in Four American Workers Will Be In Low-Wage Jobs for the Next Decade | Travis Waldron [Think Progress] | August 2, 2025 |
IV. Scholary articles, Monographs & White Papers
| Title | Author/Institution | Year of Publication |
| Trade, Education, and the Shrinking Middle Class | CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) (Emily Blanchard, Gerald Willmann) | 2013 |
| What is Middle Class About the Middle Class Around the World | Journal of Economic Perspectives (Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo) | 2008 |
| The Strugglers: The New Poor in Latin America | Nancy Birdsall, Nora Lustig, Christian J. Meyer [Center for Global Development] | 2013 |
| Job Polarization During the Great Recession and Beyond | KU Leuven (Maarten Goos, Anna Salomons & Marieke Vandeweyer) | 2013 |
| The middle class in contemporary South Africa: Comparing rival approaches | Ronelle Burger, Cindy Lee Steenekamp, Servaas van der Berg, Asmus Zoch | 2014 |
| The Political and Social Implications of the ‘New Middle Class’ in Developing Countries: A Literature Review and Avenues for Future Research | Borge Wietzke & Andy Sumner | 2014, May |
| How Growing Inequality Hurts the Middle Class | Robert H Frank | 2007 |
| The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerization? | Carl Benedikt Frey, Michael A. Osborne | 2013, September |
| The Middle Class Consensus and Economic Development | William Easterly [World Bank] | 2001 |
| The New Global Middle Class: A Cross-Over from West to East | Homi Kharas & Geoffrey Gertz [Brookings] | 2010 |
| Growth and the Middle Class | David Madland [Democracy Journal] | Spring 2011 |
| Globalization's Missing Middle | Geoffrey Garret [Foreign Affairs] | Nov / Dec 2004 |
| Indonesia’s Rising Middle Class to Transform the Country’s Consumer Market | Euromonitor International | July 2012 |
| Income Inequality: Economic Disparities and the Middle Class in Affluent Countries [google preview] | Janet Gornick & Markus Jaentii | 2013 |
| The Icelandic Way Out of the Crisis. Welfarism, Redistribution and Austerity | Stefán Ólafsson [Social Research Centre, University of Iceland] | 2012 |
| The Political and Social Implications of the New Middle Classes in Developing Countries: A Literature Review and Avenues for Future Research | Borge Witzke, Andy Sumner | 2014 |
| Social Class. The Role of Class in Shaping Social Attitudes | Anthony Heath, Mike Savage, Nicki Senior [National Center for Social Research ] | 2013 |
V. (Multi)media and popular dossiers
| Title | Author/Institution | Year of Publication |
| The Fragile Middle | The Financial Times | 2014 |
| Inequality in Europe | Open Society Foundation | 2014 |
| Staat de middenklasse onder druk? [powerpoint] | Amsterdams Instituut voor ArbeidsStudies (AIAS), De Burcht (Centrum voor Arbeidsverhoudingen) | 2013 |
| The key to growth? Race with the machines | Erik Brynjolfsson (MIT), TEDx Talk | February 2013 |
| The Global Middle Class revolution [video] | BBC | 2013 |
| Wij en de robots (in die volgorde) [Dutch] | RTLZ | 2014 |
| Waarschuwing muiterij middenklasse geen loze kreet [Dutch] | CDA website | 2014 |
| De middenklasse kaalgeplukt [Dutch] | Schuttelaar & Partners | 2013 |
|
Middenklasse brokkelt af [Dutch] Er zijn geen nieuwe banen voor de middenklasse [Dutch] | Trouw | 2014 |
| Arbeidsmarkt veranderd, middenklasse verdwijnt [Dutch] | P&O actueel | 2014 |
| Verzwakking middenklasse bedreiging voor welvaart [Dutch] | ABN Amro | 2014 |
| Meer groei, minder middenklasse? [Dutch] | The Boston Consulting Group | 2014 |
| De automatisering bedreigt de hele middenklasse [Dutch] | De Volkskrant | 2014 |
| Meldpunt [Dutch] | KRO | 2014 |
| Politiek onderschat problemen middenklasse [Dutch] | Financieele Dagblad | 2014 |
| De race tegen de machine [Dutch] | De Correspondent | 2014 |
| Vakbond De Unie bezorgd over middenklasse[Dutch] | Nederlands Dagblad | 2014 |
| Vermogenswinstbelasting treft vooral middenklasse [Dutch] | Shares Expertise | 2014 |
|
Can China save America's middle class? | BBC | 2013, 2014 |
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How to rescure UK middle classes Americans wealth shrinks middle class falling home prices Middle class young 'will fare worse than their parents' The American dream is now just that for it's middle classes - a dream Technology didn't kill middle class jobs, public policy did Who exactlyare Ed Miliband's squeezed middle class? Middle class voters 'more leftwing' than the working class Now it's the middle class's turn to feel the employment earthquake Obama's 'middle class economics' is proof he has no more campaings to run The awful truth: education won't stop the west getting poorer | The Guardian | 2013, 2014 |
| Middle Class Series | Center for American Progress | 2012 |
| The Middle-out moment | Democracy journal | 2013 |
| Progressive Pro-Growth Principles for Trade and Competitiveness | Center for American Progress | 2014 |
| What the Middle Class doesn't understand from Rich People | Business insider | 2014 |
Photo credit main picture: London Bookshop After Dark / Scott Wylie via flickr
