The Emerging Middle Class in Post-Colonial Macao: Structure, Profile, and Mobility

Abstract

This article makes use of data from a 2007 social survey of residents of Macao to examine the structure, profile, and mobility situation of the newly emerged middle class there. It finds that although seven out often economically active persons in Macao can be classified as belonging to the middle class, the overall distribution is highly skewed toward the lower end of the class spectrum. Subjective class identification and objective class position are positively related. Macao`s middle class is the main beneficiary of the city`s compressed socioeconomic development since the members of this class not only have more personal resources and enjoy better living standards, but also have had a more positive experience of social mobility than the working class. Our findings also support the middle class differentiation hypothesis in that there are different segments to the middle class in Macao and a substantial degree of internal differentiation. Among the four subgroups of the middle class, the higher-rank new middle class is consistently the most privileged. Education is found to be one of the most important determinants of class advancement.