The Global Middle Class


Do borders divide people or does class? It seems to me that people all around the world belonging to the middle class share a common culture, and that the cultural division we think of between nations is at least just as strong between poor and rich as with any middle class Afghani and middle class Chilean. This idea, whether wrong or not, is what sparked the creation of this map.

The Global Wealth Report defines middle class as anyone belonging to a family unit which makes (PPP and inflation adjusted) 100 US dollars a day. Where the line between lower and middle class is drawn is admittedly completely arbitrary, some draw it much lower and some draw it a bit higher. 

If you see any mistakes please comment what they are and I will see if I can fix it. I would also very much like to make a map with more countries, and if you know of any better datasets regarding national household incomes I could work with I would be happy to hear about them!

Footnotes:
-This map is limited as it only includes the 47 countries in the Global Wealth Report, which is linked to below. 
-The size of the countries is just visual representation and does not have an exact size correlation to size of middle classes.
-This map shows both the middle class and the upper class as one, only excluding the lower class. The reasoning behind this is that the very upper class (1%) is so small that it is almost non-existent in actual numbers.
-The values are millions - percentage of population.

HD version of map: https://imgur.com/v6M0Q7N

Source:
Global Wealth Report: https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=F2425415-DCA7-80B8-EAD989AF9341D47E
Wikipedia page on middle class which includes information about the Global Wealth Report: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class

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