The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle-class is control of significant human capital while still being under the dominion of the elite upper class, who control much of the financial and legal capital in the world. The middle class includes: professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. Stevenson identified the middle class as those falling between the upper-class and the working-class. The modern usage of the term 'middle-class', however, dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General's report, in which the statistician T.H.C. This 'middle class' eventually overthrew the ruling monarchists of feudal society, thus becoming the new ruling class or bourgeoisie in the new capitalist-dominated societies. In France, the middle classes helped drive the French Revolution. While the nobility owned much of the countryside, and the peasantry worked it, a new bourgeoisie (literally 'town-dwellers') arose around mercantile functions in the city. Friedrich Engels saw the category as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry in late-feudalist society. The term 'middle class' has had several, sometimes contradictory, meanings. Another phrase used in early modern Europe was 'the middling sort'. The term 'middle class' is first attested in James Bradshaw's 1745 pamphlet Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France. Sculpture of a chōnin, a middle class of mainly merchants that emerged in Japan during the Edo period.

It characterized the middle class as having a reasonable amount of discretionary income and defined it as beginning at the point where people have roughly a third of their income left for discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter. In February 2009, The Economist asserted that over half of the world's population belonged to the middle class, as a result of rapid growth in emerging countries. There has been significant global middle-class growth over time. With the development of capitalist societies and further inclusion of the bourgeoisie into the ruling class, middle class has been more closely identified by Marxist scholars with the term ' petite bourgeoisie.' įrom a Marxist standpoint, middle class initially referred to the ' bourgeoisie,' as distinct from nobility. Theories like 'Paradox of Interest' use decile groups and wealth distribution data to determine the size and wealth share of the middle class. Common definitions for the middle class range from the middle fifth of individuals on a nation's income ladder, to everyone but the poorest and wealthiest 20%. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. Global shareholders of wealth by wealth group, Credit Suisse, 2021

Middle class definition