Who Is The Kenyan Middle Class?

I have observed that many people who have very strong opinions on who the middle class is and their role in the country do not seem to know exactly who the middle class is. Winnie Odinga’s rant about the middle class brought many of those out of the wood works.  Every time there’s a political action, whether demo or elections, we love to blame the middle class for failures of the political system. But who is the middle class really?

Middle class as an economic phenomenon

Middle class can be defined quantitatively or qualitatively; quantitative according to their ability to spend, and qualitatively, being their behavioral characteristics which are shaped by spending levels.  The middle class is defined as the population segment that has enough income for a bit of discretionary spending and this varies by country, because countries/regions have varying spending power.

According to AFDB, Africa’s middle class is defined by the following:

1. Individuals or households that fall between the 20th and 80th percentile of the consumption distribution or between 0.75 and 1.25 times median per capita income, respectively; or
2. Individuals who have a daily spend of between $2-$20 per day (between Kshs 200 – Kshs 2,000) daily.

AFDB proceeds to classify the middle class into the upper middle class, the lower middle class and the floating class, with the third being the closest to the poverty line.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics has adopted a different definition of the middle class, as anyone spending between KShs 23,670 and KShs 199,999 per month.  I am inclined to go with this definition for Kenyan purposes, as I feel it is more in line with our spending power. Assuming everyone spends what they earn the KNBS definition means the middle class Kenyan/Kenyan family is one whose gross monthly salary is between 26,000 and 270,000 per month (approximately).

Whichever definition you go with, it is clear that there’s little in common between the person on the lowest level and the one at the highest level, other than the fact that they fall between the 20th and 80th percentile of the country’s consumption distribution. In addition to this, the statistical definition of middle class only covers salaried and/or urbanized workers, which creates an obvious limitation in a continent whose economy is largely informal; so the rural farmer who spends less than $2 a day because she gets most of her food from her farm and barters produce for needed services may not be middle class, yet she has a higher standard of living than the teacher who earns Kshs 25,000 per month.

Which brings me to my first conclusion: The middle class definition is feelings-agnostic. It is nothing to feel particularly superior about, neither is there anything inherently inferior about it. The middle manager and the teacher or entry level administrator both belong to the middle class. It is just a statistical fact.

The social phenomena that is the middle class

Socially, the middle class is a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, who fall socio-economically between the working class and the upper class. The measures vary, but all agree that a large middle class often signals a healthy society (just as a matter of note, 62% of Africa’s population is below the middle class).

The modern usage of the term “middle class”,  dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General’s report, in which the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as that falling between the upper class and the working class.Included as belonging to the middle class are professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is possession of significant human capital.

The key social identifiers of the African middle class include:

• Achievement of tertiary education.
• Holding professional qualifications, including academics, lawyers, chartered engineers, politicians, and doctors, regardless of leisure or wealth.
• Hold salaried jobs or are small business owners
• Young and in the acquisitive phase of life
• Have fewer children and have strongly vested interest in their children’s welfare. Tend to opt for private healthcare and education
• Aspirational

The middle class as a political phenomenon

The middle class is said to have helped drive the French Revolution, a historical fact that is often quoted in trying to rouse the middle class in mass action against the ruling class.

Today, politicians see the middle class as something to create with the gains of economic growth. But in fact, the opposite is the case: The middle class is the source of economic growth. A strong middle class provides a stable consumer base that drives productive investment. Beyond that, a strong middle class is a key factor in encouraging other national and societal conditions that lead to growth. It is a prerequisite for robust entrepreneurship and innovation, a source of trust that greases social interactions and reduces transaction costs, a bastion of civic engagement that produces better governance, and a promoter of education and other long-term investments.

This brings me to my second and final conclusion. While it may feel good for middle class and upper class Kenyans to berate middle class Kenyans (ironical) for not participating in mass action and demonstrations, it is clear that:

• Short of during a revolution, there’s no rational reason why the middle class would be out on the streets (see social and economic definition above). Their immediate need for an income far outweighs the desire for a better political future, and they’re in fact heavily vested in keeping the political situation as stable as possible. Mass action threatens that.
• Being better educated and aware than the rest of the population, the middle class is well placed for civil engagement. Engaging the middle class politically should involve initiatives that involve lobbying for change in areas that affect them. This is something I’ve seen working very well with movements such as Kilimani Speaks, which has evolved from the typical neighborhood watch into a movement for civil education and engagement.  I love to say that real change happens in the years in between elections. By starting at the centre with the estate roads and garbage collection (problems that are real for the middle class), the change radiates outwards.

And no, the middle class in Kenya can definitely not afford to pay Kshs 50,000 per month to house helps. If that were economically feasible, a good chunk of said middle class itself would be employed as house helps which would collapse the house helps market, lowering the prices. An economics class for another day. 😀

For further reading:

The Middle of the Pyramid: Dynamics of the Middle Class in Africa – AFDB (2011)

History and Evolution of the Middle Class – Wikipedia

Growth and The Middle Class – Democracy Journal

The Reality of the African Middle Class – MSRA (2015)

Image Credits – A Continent Goes Shopping (The Economist)