The reassessment of world middle classes (with a focus on the new Asian middle class)

In recent decades, with an increasing number of consumer-oriented middle class households in developing countries, particularly in Asia and the increasing number of Asian firms which supply unnecessary and market-oriented goods, the concept of “New Asian Middle Class” has become the focus of attention instead of the concept of “Global Middle Class”, and a large body of research is done about this new Asian middle class. This article, by using documentary-library studies and reviewing the latest research works, is seeking to investigate the nature and various aspects of this process, and is trying to give a comprehensive and more complete picture of this subject. The article , first, studies the massive number of new Asian middle class households that have emerged as the result of economic and political reforms of the governments in Asia, and then, by assessing various criteria which have been used for measuring the new middle classes , proposes more accurate and more comprehensive criteria. Finally, the article examines the reactions of the members of this class to different issues ; reactions depending on socio-economic and socio-political backgrounds, and shows that to what extent assigning large missions on this new consumer middle classes, without considering the historical contexts and circumstances and the stages of economic growth of their countries , would be fragile.