Kenya: Who Are the Middle Class and What Do They Aspire To?

19 February 2015
opinion

As the name suggests, being in the middle is relative and depends on where the others are positioned. What is the middle class in a developing country may not be middle class in a developed country. Taken further, middle class may even be localised and defined within a country. So what exactly could Kenya's middle class look like?

Whereas there may be no consensus on the exact definition of what constitutes the middle class, it is generally understood that the middle class is key to the prosperity of a country. By general definition, this is the social class that is neither poor nor wealthy. In a developing country like Kenya that has been identified more with poverty than with wealth, the emergence of a middle class is good news. Nevertheless, it also means some of the policies in place may be irrelevant to this class, or at extremes, others may be outright unfriendly. Whichever is the case, its time that the country recognised and embraced the emerging middle class and designed policies that address the core middle-class issues.

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