The global middle class is moving east
How a historic shift in global prosperity is changing politics, consumption, and development
The global middle class is no longer mainly a Western story. In this episode of In Pursuit of Development, I speak with Homi Kharas about why the rise of the middle class has become one of the defining forces in development, and why its future will matter for democracy, inequality, and sustainability.
The middle class is one of the most invoked ideas in development. Politicians promise to protect it, economists track its size, and millions of families across the world aspire to join it. But what do we actually mean when we use the term?
Is the middle class defined by income, occupation, education, security, or lifestyle? And why has it become such a powerful lens for understanding economic change, political expectations, and social mobility?
These questions are at the heart of my latest conversation with Homi Kharas. Drawing on his new book, The Rise of the Global Middle Class: How the Search for the Good Life Can Change the World, we discuss how the middle class emerged, why its center of gravity is shifting toward Asia, and what that means for democracy, inequality, and sustainability in the years ahead.
The rise of the middle class is not simply about income. It is also about mobility, dignity, and a better future for one’s children. That is precisely why it matters so much.
The class that makes choices
When I asked Homi where the middle class comes from, he went back to Victorian England.
“Before the Industrial Revolution, there were basically two classes in society. You had a ruling class … and you had everybody else.”
The Industrial Revolution changed that. It created new occupations, new urban lives, and new forms of mobility. Scientists, engineers, teachers, nurses, bankers, and civil servants gradually formed what we now think of as the modern middle class.
But Homi’s most striking point was not simply historical. It was conceptual.
“When you are poor, you don’t really make choices. You struggle to survive. When you’re rich, you don’t make choices either — you don’t have to give up anything in order to get something else. The middle class is actually the class that makes choices.”
Development is thus not only about leaving poverty behind. It is also about expanding the space for trade-offs, planning, risk-taking, and self-determination. For Homi, this is one of the defining features of the middle class: the ability to make choices about one’s future without constantly living on the edge of disaster.
Why the middle class matters so much
The middle class did not simply benefit from modern development. It helped build it by playing a major role in shaping many of the institutions that define modern societies including public education, public health, pensions, universities, professional civil services, and large parts of the welfare state.
In that sense, the middle class has long been both an economic force and a political one. It is one of the great engines of modern economic history. Indeed, it is large enough to shape demand, reward innovation, influence public policy, and redefine what citizens expect from states and markets alike.
But the middle class is not only about comfort or consumption. At its core, Homi argues, it is about security.
“The middle class is looking for security,” he said. “If you have some kind of shock — a spell of illness, a spell of unemployment, something like that — you have the wherewithal to recover.”
That ability to recover from setbacks matters. People living in poverty are often highly risk-averse, not because they lack imagination or ambition, but because one illness, one failed harvest, or one lost job can be devastating. Middle-class households usually have more room to absorb shocks — through savings, services, family support, or public safety nets. That cushion helps explain why the middle class is so often associated with entrepreneurship, aspiration, and mobility.
“The middle class is looking for security.”
The West is anxious. Asia is rising.
For much of the twentieth century, the middle class was largely seen as a Western story. It was associated with postwar Europe, the American Dream, stable employment, home ownership, rising wages, and the expectation that each generation would do better than the last.
That story no longer holds in the same way. One of the most important arguments in Homi’s book is that the center of gravity of the global middle class is shifting decisively toward Asia. This is one of the biggest transformations now underway in the world economy.
As he put it:
“We are almost certainly living in a majority middle-class world today.”
Two hundred years ago, the middle class barely existed in any meaningful global sense. Today, it has become one of the defining megatrends of modern development.
But this shift has also produced deep anxieties, especially in Europe and North America. In our conversation, I reflected on how many Western middle-class households grew up with the sense that security was preordained: education, work, family, home ownership, and perhaps a slightly better life than their parents. That confidence has weakened dramatically.
Homi linked this less to immigration than to globalization and the redistribution of economic opportunity.
“People in the West are feeling threatened. Jobs are being threatened.”
Globalization, then, has had a double effect. It has helped expand the middle class in emerging economies while generating insecurity among parts of the established middle class in advanced economies. That tension now sits at the center of many political debates in the West.
A dream collides with planetary limits
There is much to celebrate in the rise of the middle class. It usually means better access to education, healthcare, housing, transport, and consumer goods. It means more people can save, plan, invest in their children, and imagine a life beyond mere survival. But there is another side to the story.
As billions more people enter the middle class, the global economy faces a big test. Can middle-class life, as historically organized, be sustained on a planetary scale? I asked Homi about the “good, the bad, and the ugly” of this shift, especially as Asia’s middle class continues to grow. His answer was blunt:
“The economic structures we have had — essentially take, make, consume, and throw away — are not scalable on a planetary scale.”
That is the dilemma. A world of expanding middle-class aspiration also means rising demand for energy, transport, cooling, meat, housing, and manufactured goods. Left unchanged, those consumption patterns will intensify climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and waste.
But Homi does not believe the answer is to deny people in Asia or elsewhere the comforts and opportunities long enjoyed in the West. Instead, he argues that the real solution lies in technology, policy, and institutional change.
“It can be done technologically,” he said. “Whether we can get the policies and institutions to change rapidly enough is a different question.”
That distinction matters since the real obstacle is not simply a lack of innovation. It is whether governments, firms, and societies can move quickly enough to scale cleaner energy, more efficient systems, and less wasteful forms of consumption before critical tipping points are crossed.
“The economic structures we have had … are not scalable on a planetary scale.”
Will the middle class save the planet?
One of the most interesting moments in the conversation came when Homi suggested that the middle class may become one of the strongest forces for environmental action. Not because it is morally superior, but because its interests are practical and immediate. Middle-class households care about clean air, safe water, functioning transport, and healthier cities. They may not mobilize around abstract appeals to “save the planet,” but they do push governments when environmental degradation affects everyday life.
As Homi put it:
“One reason I say that it is the middle class that is going to save the planet is precisely because in all of these countries, it is the middle class that is pushing governments to do something.”
That is a useful corrective to the common tendency to portray the middle class as either the problem or the solution. In reality, it is both. It drives consumption and environmental pressure, but it also drives expectations. And those expectations can become politically powerful.
Democracy is not guaranteed
While the middle class is often associated with democracy, moderation, and social progress, Homi was careful to challenge any overly romantic view. Historically, the middle class has not always been a progressive force. It has supported welfare states and reform. But also colonialism, militarism, exclusion, and authoritarian bargains that promised order and prosperity.
What the middle class tends to want most is stability and advancement for itself and its children. That can align with liberal democratic values, but it does not automatically do so. This is one reason the global expansion of the middle class is such a consequential story. It does not point in only one political direction.
It can strengthen demands for accountability, rights, and public goods. But it can also reinforce anxiety, protectionism, competition, and exclusion.
Africa’s harder road
We also spoke briefly about the African continent, where the growth of the middle class has been far more limited than many earlier narratives predicted. The continent has enormous potential, but it also faces formidable constraints such as limited infrastructure, weak energy systems, slow industrialization, climate vulnerability, and the challenge of building productive urban economies under difficult global conditions.
That does not mean a large African middle class cannot emerge. It can. But the path is steeper, and the broader international context is less forgiving. Africa is trying to build prosperity at a time when the traditional models of middle-class expansion are themselves under strain.
Development as possibility
Development is not only about reducing poverty. It is also about expanding possibility. The rise of the middle class reflects that broader transformation. It signals that more people can aspire, plan, choose, and build lives with greater security and autonomy. But it also sharpens some of the defining questions of our time.
Can middle-class prosperity be made environmentally sustainable? Will rising middle classes strengthen democracy, or deepen polarization and insecurity? Can Africa build a broad middle class under today’s adverse conditions? And can the world redesign economic life quickly enough to meet rising aspirations without breaching planetary limits?
The middle class is not merely a category. It is a lens through which many of the biggest tensions in global development come into view.
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