Arsalan mehmud
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I am proud of my bangladeshi brothers... they are progressing in every fields... In cricket also they are equivalent to India and Pakistan....
Bangladeshi middle class rising impressively
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Arthur
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Bro,BD's recent development surge is a story,which almost everyone finds hard to take on face value.Heck even I had hard time to sort it.Foreign organizations like But I am afraid you have to go through the research by yourself. You can look up the reports by CPD,And columns from Respected figure like Economist. Prof. Anu Muhammad as they are very critical researcher on these field.They always publish reports held a seminars and press meetings on these matters and always puts an insightful input ,it can help you if you are interested.
Bangladesh Economy: News & Updates
Developments in Bangladesh
And also this one from 2012
Rising middle class in Bangladesh
And,yes do post them.
Bilal9
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If things in India improve it is no skin off our (collective) backs. I believe the growth rate went to 6.9% from 4.7 % in 2013-14 due to a change in measuring standards. And I'm no economist, just providing food for thought,
GDP of India changed to 6.9% from 4.7 % in 2013-14 due to change in measuring standards. What are these measuring standards? - Quora
But we're veering off topic here.
Nilgiri
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Yes I am aware of the trend and wish B'desh well. But the problem is internalisation of what constitutes a "middle" class. A middle class somewhere is low income elsewhere and vice versa.
The point is that Bangladesh is growing and growing solidly....I personally think middle class projections are just somewhat of a distraction when you put too much attention on them (because growth of that is inevitable, the details depend on definition). I guess I am more of a purist who believes whats happened and cautious about what is to be (especially when definitions can vary). It does not detract away from Bangladesh performance economically. I've come away a wiser man after sparring with numerous Chinese posters in their subforum (both good members and outright trolls) on the importance of globalised, standardized data...so I have naturally become leery towards certain types of studies/surveys.
I will post the Credit Suisse 2015 Data for Bangladesh when I get time later. We can analyse from there w.r.t this BCG study. Watch this thread.
Nice link that explains it all.
I remember China doing something the same in the mid 90s I believe and various media were all up in arms about that back then....but the Chinese data has since been shown to be on the whole true (there have since been backtracked revisions to standardise as well....but nothing of major magnitudes).
Yes we are veering off topic, I don't want to bring India and other countries into this topic beyond a certain level.
bongbang
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Bangladesh's growing middle class
According to a new report titled 'The Surging Consumer Market Nobody Saw Coming' published by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the middle class of Bangladesh is emerging as one with purchasing power that values foreign brands and is hopping on to the digital bandwagon in their millions. Obviously this opens up new opportunities for foreign firms hoping to cash in on the spending spree Bangladeshi consumers have embarked upon.
The report and its findings reveal some interesting data. For instance, the average income of targeted families which falls squarely into the 7 percent of the population that constitutes the middle class have an average annual income of US$5,000. The consumer product revolution that is being witnessed in this class, especially with the proliferation of banking facilities like credit purchases and easy installment / higher-purchase forms of payment and affordable loans have seen the consumer market record stupendous sales in consumer products ranging from foreign cosmetics, air-coolers, refrigerators to passenger vehicles.
Seven percent of the population with purchasing power translates into roughly 11 million people who are “middle and affluent consumers” (MAC) are seen as confident consumers with an expectation of seeing their incomes increase positively in the next fiscal. Yet, there is also another undercurrent that differentiates the Bangladeshi average consumer from their Asian counterparts i.e. the aversion towards accumulating debt which they may or may not be able to repay. Despite reservations on affordability, Bangladeshis are hopping on to the digital bandwagon at a stupendous rate.
It is estimated that more than 50 million people use internet services on their cell phones. There is also a shift in consumer preferences being witnessed when it comes to shopping habits which had long been dominated by traditional convenience stores and supermarkets. That more and more people are using the internet to buy and sell products from household products to cars and even land, houses and apartments, the latter three being most valued of fixed assets, is another very interesting development. In urban centres, “plastic” (debit / credit cards) is making inroads into the purchase and sales of consumer products.
As stated by Vivek Nauhbar, a BCG consultant and another co-author. “Companies should start building robust e-commerce platforms designed for interacting with consumers through small digital screens to meet growing mobile-enabled demand.” Companies' marketing strategies need to be reoriented to factor in consumer traits that revolve around fear of accumulating debt – which means offering affordable financing in terms of loans and lower interest rates.
So how is a country that is ranked by the World Bank of having a sub-Saharan category per capita income of approximately US$1,100 per annum manage to find itself as an emerging market for consumer products? The country has experienced an average GDP growth rate of around 6 percent for the last decade. Its apparels industry (RMG) has emerged as number 3 in the global market riding high on low wages and an abundant pool of labour. The strong growth of inward remittances by the hundreds of thousands of expatriate Bangladeshi workers amounting to billions of dollars annually are all contributing factors to the rise of the Bangladeshi middle class.
Companies, both local and foreign, need to wake up and take notice of these trends if they wish to be companies of choice to whom Bangladeshi consumers will turn when they go shopping. The average consumer in Bangladesh is very value-conscious. Whilst, more money may be available for expending on a new product (which is viewed as a step-up from the current “model”) consumers can truly be bought over to adopt a product which gives the notion of “good value for money”.
This explains why the middle class of major urban centres like Dhaka and Chittagong have opted for brands like Walton, which makes everything from motorcycles to smart phones, is making a killing; or why a Chinese-packaged Bangladeshi company named Symphony has captured around 50 percent of the internet-enabled smart phone segment. These companies understand what motivates the customer: Good value for money and a relatively decent shelf life while sporting technology that is second to none.
The biggest thing going for the country is its population – a young, vibrant and growing population will help propel the country's growth engine and a rising consumer base for many years to come. It is estimated that the poor segment of the population that currently stands at 84 million will nearly halve to 44 million by 2025 and the emerging middle class will have risen from the current 17 million to 27 million in the coming decade. The rise in purchasing power will not be limited to major cities like Dhaka and Chittagong, but spill over to witness even greater impact in cities like Khulna (an emerging industrial hub), Gazipur (already a major RMG centre), to other cities that will see similar growth of urban populations and consumer bases. It is estimated that in Bangladesh, by 2025, there will be “63 cities will have MAC populations of at least 100,000 compared with 36 now.”
Bangladesh's growing middle class | The Daily Star
According to a new report titled 'The Surging Consumer Market Nobody Saw Coming' published by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the middle class of Bangladesh is emerging as one with purchasing power that values foreign brands and is hopping on to the digital bandwagon in their millions. Obviously this opens up new opportunities for foreign firms hoping to cash in on the spending spree Bangladeshi consumers have embarked upon.
The report and its findings reveal some interesting data. For instance, the average income of targeted families which falls squarely into the 7 percent of the population that constitutes the middle class have an average annual income of US$5,000. The consumer product revolution that is being witnessed in this class, especially with the proliferation of banking facilities like credit purchases and easy installment / higher-purchase forms of payment and affordable loans have seen the consumer market record stupendous sales in consumer products ranging from foreign cosmetics, air-coolers, refrigerators to passenger vehicles.
Seven percent of the population with purchasing power translates into roughly 11 million people who are “middle and affluent consumers” (MAC) are seen as confident consumers with an expectation of seeing their incomes increase positively in the next fiscal. Yet, there is also another undercurrent that differentiates the Bangladeshi average consumer from their Asian counterparts i.e. the aversion towards accumulating debt which they may or may not be able to repay. Despite reservations on affordability, Bangladeshis are hopping on to the digital bandwagon at a stupendous rate.
It is estimated that more than 50 million people use internet services on their cell phones. There is also a shift in consumer preferences being witnessed when it comes to shopping habits which had long been dominated by traditional convenience stores and supermarkets. That more and more people are using the internet to buy and sell products from household products to cars and even land, houses and apartments, the latter three being most valued of fixed assets, is another very interesting development. In urban centres, “plastic” (debit / credit cards) is making inroads into the purchase and sales of consumer products.
As stated by Vivek Nauhbar, a BCG consultant and another co-author. “Companies should start building robust e-commerce platforms designed for interacting with consumers through small digital screens to meet growing mobile-enabled demand.” Companies' marketing strategies need to be reoriented to factor in consumer traits that revolve around fear of accumulating debt – which means offering affordable financing in terms of loans and lower interest rates.
So how is a country that is ranked by the World Bank of having a sub-Saharan category per capita income of approximately US$1,100 per annum manage to find itself as an emerging market for consumer products? The country has experienced an average GDP growth rate of around 6 percent for the last decade. Its apparels industry (RMG) has emerged as number 3 in the global market riding high on low wages and an abundant pool of labour. The strong growth of inward remittances by the hundreds of thousands of expatriate Bangladeshi workers amounting to billions of dollars annually are all contributing factors to the rise of the Bangladeshi middle class.
Companies, both local and foreign, need to wake up and take notice of these trends if they wish to be companies of choice to whom Bangladeshi consumers will turn when they go shopping. The average consumer in Bangladesh is very value-conscious. Whilst, more money may be available for expending on a new product (which is viewed as a step-up from the current “model”) consumers can truly be bought over to adopt a product which gives the notion of “good value for money”.
This explains why the middle class of major urban centres like Dhaka and Chittagong have opted for brands like Walton, which makes everything from motorcycles to smart phones, is making a killing; or why a Chinese-packaged Bangladeshi company named Symphony has captured around 50 percent of the internet-enabled smart phone segment. These companies understand what motivates the customer: Good value for money and a relatively decent shelf life while sporting technology that is second to none.
The biggest thing going for the country is its population – a young, vibrant and growing population will help propel the country's growth engine and a rising consumer base for many years to come. It is estimated that the poor segment of the population that currently stands at 84 million will nearly halve to 44 million by 2025 and the emerging middle class will have risen from the current 17 million to 27 million in the coming decade. The rise in purchasing power will not be limited to major cities like Dhaka and Chittagong, but spill over to witness even greater impact in cities like Khulna (an emerging industrial hub), Gazipur (already a major RMG centre), to other cities that will see similar growth of urban populations and consumer bases. It is estimated that in Bangladesh, by 2025, there will be “63 cities will have MAC populations of at least 100,000 compared with 36 now.”
Bangladesh's growing middle class | The Daily Star
extra terrestrial
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The definition of middle class used here obviously follows the international standard you are referring to. The report is prepared by the Boston Consultancy Group which is based in the US. I'm not sure if there's any comprehensive study by local firms on the middle class of Bangladesh but our PM often asserts that there are some 50 million middle class Bangladeshis, so the local threshold seem to be much lesser than the $5000 mark used here.
Nilgiri
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What I am saying is there is no single "international" standard. There are a myriad of definitions. When we go by a particular study, I guess we need to see a similar study they have done for another country and if they have used the same criteria as close as possible (5000 PPP income).
Then there is the whole debate of income versus wealth as proper measure of "middle class".
After all is someone that is earning 10 grand in a year (but is spending it all on consumables and bills ans saving/investing a tiny fraction and has no hard assets) better off than someone that is earning 1000 in a year but the latter has assets and property etc that amount to millions of dollars.
Its a drastic exaggerated situation but there are various composite cases of this that arguably make wealth better than pure yearly income...wealth has its limitations too however, so I would technically prefer a composite index. But that is generally something too advanced when you want to just roughly gauge the size.
The numbers in this study (compared to Credit Suisse study) have also been inflated relatively speaking because it includes the dependents of the middle class earner (it has to or the figures make no sense to me, just like no way it can be nominal dollars)....whereas the C.S study looks entirely at just the size of the actual earners i.e "adults". So we ourselves have to extrapolate somewhat when comparing actual middle class footprints by the average household size in the latter.
These are just some of the problems that arise by having different definitions and methodologies. So sticking to the same group/organisation is probably the best bet for comparing to "international" norms....to ensure they use the same definition and methodology globally for others....so we can have a more appropriate relevant context.
I will have to dig around to find any data for India for example using this 5000 PPP income definition from BCG
From BCG all I could find about India so far (in a quick search) was:
http://documents.bcg.com/BCG_10_Trillion_Dollar_Prize_Executive_Summary_Booklet_2012.pdf
Which to begin with is 3 years old already now and looks to give some general overall market trends rather than a distribution or income class estimate.
If you stumble across anything else BCG has done regarding middle class projections (for other countries or even earlier projections for Bangladesh), that would be interesting.
Anything a politician says must always be taken with a large handful of salt. Like I said different definitions can be used.
Anyone that is simply "not absolutely poor" can be "middle class"....that would make India about 80%+ middle class or more....which is quite a silly thing to say.
I will post the Credit Suisse data for Bangladesh and some other countries later...it contains some interesting results.
Arthur
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Credit Suisse: Bangladeshis wealth tripled in 15 years
October 16, 2015 1:52 pm Ittefaq Report
A research conducted by financial rating organization Credit Suisse revealed that the wealth of Bangladeshi people have tripled in the last 15 years. Adult citizens have seen their wealth doubled.
The report also mentioned that Bangladesh’s adult population by mid 2015 increased to 100.7 million which was 70.2 million in 2000.
Over the last 15 years, the per capita wealth in Bangladesh’s adult population also increased from $1,069 to $2,201.
The quantum of immovable wealth increased from $652 to $1,470 and the amount of economic wealth also rose from $441 to $795.
But this increase in wealth has also increased debts. At present, each Bangladeshis carry a debt burden of $64, which was $24 fifteen years ago.
People in India’s growing economy have $3,447 billion wealth, Pakistan $495 billion, Sri Lanka $73 billion and Nepal $37 billion.
In the United States, being the world’s richest country, the people commanded wealth of $85,901 billion.
According to the report, Credit Suisse estimates Bangladesh’s population to be 170.5 million with per capita wealth in the hands of 97.7 percent of the adult population at $10,000 or a little less than Tk 780,000.
The rating organization also identified 1.2 million Bangladeshis as members of middle class, who are said to have wealth amounting to at least $17,886 each.
Credit Suisse: Bangladeshis wealth tripled in 15 years - Click Ittefaq | Click Ittefaq
Wealth of the people of Bangladesh has trebled in 15 years: Report -
bdnews24.com
সপ্তম পঞ্চবার্ষিকী পরিকল্পনা (২০১৬ ২০২০) | Internal Resources Division-Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh | অভ্যন্তরীণ সম্পদ বিভাগ-গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ সরকার
October 16, 2015 1:52 pm Ittefaq Report
A research conducted by financial rating organization Credit Suisse revealed that the wealth of Bangladeshi people have tripled in the last 15 years. Adult citizens have seen their wealth doubled.
The report also mentioned that Bangladesh’s adult population by mid 2015 increased to 100.7 million which was 70.2 million in 2000.
Over the last 15 years, the per capita wealth in Bangladesh’s adult population also increased from $1,069 to $2,201.
The quantum of immovable wealth increased from $652 to $1,470 and the amount of economic wealth also rose from $441 to $795.
But this increase in wealth has also increased debts. At present, each Bangladeshis carry a debt burden of $64, which was $24 fifteen years ago.
People in India’s growing economy have $3,447 billion wealth, Pakistan $495 billion, Sri Lanka $73 billion and Nepal $37 billion.
In the United States, being the world’s richest country, the people commanded wealth of $85,901 billion.
According to the report, Credit Suisse estimates Bangladesh’s population to be 170.5 million with per capita wealth in the hands of 97.7 percent of the adult population at $10,000 or a little less than Tk 780,000.
The rating organization also identified 1.2 million Bangladeshis as members of middle class, who are said to have wealth amounting to at least $17,886 each.
Credit Suisse: Bangladeshis wealth tripled in 15 years - Click Ittefaq | Click Ittefaq
Wealth of the people of Bangladesh has trebled in 15 years: Report -
bdnews24.com
সপ্তম পঞ্চবার্ষিকী পরিকল্পনা (২০১৬ ২০২০) | Internal Resources Division-Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh | অভ্যন্তরীণ সম্পদ বিভাগ-গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ সরকার
Nilgiri
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@Khan saheb Thank you bhai for posting from B'desh perspective. Saves me having to post a summary for Bangladesh alone.
Now some interesting details of the report:
Mean wealth per adult is about half that of India and Pakistan who are at about 4400 USD....who are in turn about one fifth of the wealth per adult of China at 22500 USD. We all have a very long way to go, but I am optimistic especially for India and Bangladesh.
Some other Wealth per adult figures in the region (in USD):
Sri Lanka ~ 5000
Nepal ~ 2000
Maldives ~6700
Myanmar ~ 2100
Iran ~ 3650
No figure available for Bhutan or Afghanistan
Now you may wonder why Iran is so low. This again comes to what I was saying earlier. It is hard to fully capture the middle class by any one study or any one definition.
Imagine for example Person A and Person B. Both started work at the same age (lets say 18) and are now 28 years old and in that time period (10 years) worked the exact same job and earned the exact same income each year (lets say an average of 10,000 USD per year).
That means their total income so far in their lives was 100,000 USD right?
But Person A total wealth is 50,000 USD whereas Person B is 20,000 USD. Why is that? It's because Person B spent had more CONSUMABLE bills....he ate more expensive types of food, his car is a gas guzzler that uses more fuel, he leaves the lights on all the time running up his electricity bill etc etc etc....whereas person A was more "frugal" on the consumable bills and spent the difference (30,000) on hard assets that still count as wealth (be it housing, possessions, savings, investment funts etc..).
When people are poorer wealth wise....they have often spent a lot more money on stuff like food, fuel, rent etc.. as % of what they earn....but it does not necessarily mean they are not in the middle class. It might be by spending patterns, aspiration or even dire need.
There is also the case made for hidden wealth that does not show up in these studies, they are estimates after all. That might also explain why Iran is a lot lower than one would imagine.
Another interesting figure is Median wealth per adult. Here are some figures:
Bangladesh: 1104 (50%)
India: 868 (20%)
China: 7357 (32.7%)
Pakistan: 2316 (52%)
Myanmar: 984 (46.9%)
Iran: 1711 (46.9%)
What's a median? It's if you arrange every member of a certain set (Here adults of a certain country) into a list by some variable (their wealth)...and then walk halfway across this line of people and then ask the person at the halfway mark what is his income.
Compare this to the Mean where we simply took the total wealth and divided by the number of people. We know in reality that it is never the case in these kinds of things where 100% of the country's adults earn the mean. Some earn higher, some earn lower....and the mean is always skewed because of the higher earning people that form a small minority generally speaking.
So in a perfect communist ideal, we would have the mean and median being the exact same (i.e the median is 100% of the mean)....so by dividing the median by the mean, we get a rough measure of the inequality present in a country. Thats the percentage figure I've posted next to the Median itself in the list.
Of course I have already mentioned the problems of the Credit Suisse report so we cannot make firm 100% conclusions from any of this (remember total aggregate income earned does not equal wealth). This may partly explain why India's median/mean ratio is shockingly low...along with the more well known trend that India's growth has been somewhat "top heavy".
Now let's look at "Wealth" (again not aggregate income) Growth from 2000 - 2015:
Bangladesh: 1069, 495 (4.9%, 5.5%)
India: 2036, 579 (5.2%, 2.7%)
China: 5672, 2804 (9.6%, 6.6%)
Pakistan: 2399, 1144 (4.2%, 4.8%)
The figures on the left are the Mean and Median Wealth per adult from 2000 and the next two figures are their average growth rates annually to 2015. As you can see both Bangladesh and Pakistan have done quite well in keeping their median growth rate higher than their mean growth rate (which means they are actually getting a more equal society financially by the Credit Suisse "nominal wealth only" measure. How much of India's poor figure of 2.7% annual median growth depends on again what I mentioned earlier regarding current wealth not equaling total aggregate income plus the top heavy growth that I mentioned earlier. What exactly explains what would need a much more detailed spending/investment pattern analysis....though I think its more of the former than the latter given higher Indian propensity to consume at lower economic classes (which is offset by the much higher savings rate of the middle class and rich). It is definitely something of a concern that we must seek to rectify over the coming years and decades with greater focus on semi-skilled and vocational manufacturing type jobs, like Bangladesh has done with its RMG sector.
It must also be noted that that the wealth data quality is listed as "Poor" for both Bangladesh and Pakistan unlike the "fair" rating given for India and China.....so the Bangladesh and Pakistan figures may suffer from over/under estimation compared to the reality (and no one can say which side it is or how much - Credit Suisse does not mention this anywhere).
But the picture is not all bad for India on the equality front compared to Bangladesh.....according to Credit Suisse, when we look at the ratio of wealth share/ population share of middle class adults we have:
India: 7.5
Bangladesh: 13.7
Pakistan: 6.2
China: 3.0
This means the middle class wealth distribution relative to the poor is itself quite skewed in Bangladesh...i.e the middle class have a wealth /total wealth nearly 14th times what their population/total population is. Only Nigeria and Ukraine are worse.
The exact figures are that for Bangladesh, 1.1% of all the adults are middle class whereas the middle class has 15% of the total country's wealth. For India the figures are 3% and 22.6% respectively and for Pakistan they are 5.7% and 35.2%.
Again this data is not set in stone because of the cases made for it being poor for some countries in the first place and the differences of wealth to total accumulated income/spending I mentioned earlier.
But it gives you a basic framework/understanding that South Asia is way behind China and we need to all catch up.
The lower bound of middle class used by Credit Suisse is given in Nominal USD but they do have different bounds for different countries (given the price levels).
Bangladesh: 17886
India: 13662
Pakistan: 14413
China: 29245
On the whole they correspond quite well (at least for India, Pak and China) with the PPP multiplier from the 2011 ICP:
Price level ratio of PPP conversion factor (GDP) to market exchange rate | Data | Table
i.e India, B'desh and Pakistan were all at a multiplier of 0.3...and China at 0.6 (double South Asia).
It is interesting to note that Bangladesh bound looks well on the high side....either the price levels have changed drastically in the last 4 years since 2011 according to Credit Suisse or they are using such a bound to try compensate for the quality of data from Bangladesh.....or a combination of both.
There are many other interesting bits of Data that I did not know concerning places like Thailand and Ukraine and how apparently India is quite close to them in wealth distribution even with much lower per capita income....but I don't feel like digressing and this post is quite long enough as it is. I also picked only the sections where Bangladesh was put in the table....there are many tables where Bangladesh and Pakistan do not make it....but there is interesting data there nonetheless for India and other countries/regions.
If any of you have any other questions/comments/analysis....please share here.
Now some interesting details of the report:
Mean wealth per adult is about half that of India and Pakistan who are at about 4400 USD....who are in turn about one fifth of the wealth per adult of China at 22500 USD. We all have a very long way to go, but I am optimistic especially for India and Bangladesh.
Some other Wealth per adult figures in the region (in USD):
Sri Lanka ~ 5000
Nepal ~ 2000
Maldives ~6700
Myanmar ~ 2100
Iran ~ 3650
No figure available for Bhutan or Afghanistan
Now you may wonder why Iran is so low. This again comes to what I was saying earlier. It is hard to fully capture the middle class by any one study or any one definition.
Imagine for example Person A and Person B. Both started work at the same age (lets say 18) and are now 28 years old and in that time period (10 years) worked the exact same job and earned the exact same income each year (lets say an average of 10,000 USD per year).
That means their total income so far in their lives was 100,000 USD right?
But Person A total wealth is 50,000 USD whereas Person B is 20,000 USD. Why is that? It's because Person B spent had more CONSUMABLE bills....he ate more expensive types of food, his car is a gas guzzler that uses more fuel, he leaves the lights on all the time running up his electricity bill etc etc etc....whereas person A was more "frugal" on the consumable bills and spent the difference (30,000) on hard assets that still count as wealth (be it housing, possessions, savings, investment funts etc..).
When people are poorer wealth wise....they have often spent a lot more money on stuff like food, fuel, rent etc.. as % of what they earn....but it does not necessarily mean they are not in the middle class. It might be by spending patterns, aspiration or even dire need.
There is also the case made for hidden wealth that does not show up in these studies, they are estimates after all. That might also explain why Iran is a lot lower than one would imagine.
Another interesting figure is Median wealth per adult. Here are some figures:
Bangladesh: 1104 (50%)
India: 868 (20%)
China: 7357 (32.7%)
Pakistan: 2316 (52%)
Myanmar: 984 (46.9%)
Iran: 1711 (46.9%)
What's a median? It's if you arrange every member of a certain set (Here adults of a certain country) into a list by some variable (their wealth)...and then walk halfway across this line of people and then ask the person at the halfway mark what is his income.
Compare this to the Mean where we simply took the total wealth and divided by the number of people. We know in reality that it is never the case in these kinds of things where 100% of the country's adults earn the mean. Some earn higher, some earn lower....and the mean is always skewed because of the higher earning people that form a small minority generally speaking.
So in a perfect communist ideal, we would have the mean and median being the exact same (i.e the median is 100% of the mean)....so by dividing the median by the mean, we get a rough measure of the inequality present in a country. Thats the percentage figure I've posted next to the Median itself in the list.
Of course I have already mentioned the problems of the Credit Suisse report so we cannot make firm 100% conclusions from any of this (remember total aggregate income earned does not equal wealth). This may partly explain why India's median/mean ratio is shockingly low...along with the more well known trend that India's growth has been somewhat "top heavy".
Now let's look at "Wealth" (again not aggregate income) Growth from 2000 - 2015:
Bangladesh: 1069, 495 (4.9%, 5.5%)
India: 2036, 579 (5.2%, 2.7%)
China: 5672, 2804 (9.6%, 6.6%)
Pakistan: 2399, 1144 (4.2%, 4.8%)
The figures on the left are the Mean and Median Wealth per adult from 2000 and the next two figures are their average growth rates annually to 2015. As you can see both Bangladesh and Pakistan have done quite well in keeping their median growth rate higher than their mean growth rate (which means they are actually getting a more equal society financially by the Credit Suisse "nominal wealth only" measure. How much of India's poor figure of 2.7% annual median growth depends on again what I mentioned earlier regarding current wealth not equaling total aggregate income plus the top heavy growth that I mentioned earlier. What exactly explains what would need a much more detailed spending/investment pattern analysis....though I think its more of the former than the latter given higher Indian propensity to consume at lower economic classes (which is offset by the much higher savings rate of the middle class and rich). It is definitely something of a concern that we must seek to rectify over the coming years and decades with greater focus on semi-skilled and vocational manufacturing type jobs, like Bangladesh has done with its RMG sector.
It must also be noted that that the wealth data quality is listed as "Poor" for both Bangladesh and Pakistan unlike the "fair" rating given for India and China.....so the Bangladesh and Pakistan figures may suffer from over/under estimation compared to the reality (and no one can say which side it is or how much - Credit Suisse does not mention this anywhere).
But the picture is not all bad for India on the equality front compared to Bangladesh.....according to Credit Suisse, when we look at the ratio of wealth share/ population share of middle class adults we have:
India: 7.5
Bangladesh: 13.7
Pakistan: 6.2
China: 3.0
This means the middle class wealth distribution relative to the poor is itself quite skewed in Bangladesh...i.e the middle class have a wealth /total wealth nearly 14th times what their population/total population is. Only Nigeria and Ukraine are worse.
The exact figures are that for Bangladesh, 1.1% of all the adults are middle class whereas the middle class has 15% of the total country's wealth. For India the figures are 3% and 22.6% respectively and for Pakistan they are 5.7% and 35.2%.
Again this data is not set in stone because of the cases made for it being poor for some countries in the first place and the differences of wealth to total accumulated income/spending I mentioned earlier.
But it gives you a basic framework/understanding that South Asia is way behind China and we need to all catch up.
The lower bound of middle class used by Credit Suisse is given in Nominal USD but they do have different bounds for different countries (given the price levels).
Bangladesh: 17886
India: 13662
Pakistan: 14413
China: 29245
On the whole they correspond quite well (at least for India, Pak and China) with the PPP multiplier from the 2011 ICP:
Price level ratio of PPP conversion factor (GDP) to market exchange rate | Data | Table
i.e India, B'desh and Pakistan were all at a multiplier of 0.3...and China at 0.6 (double South Asia).
It is interesting to note that Bangladesh bound looks well on the high side....either the price levels have changed drastically in the last 4 years since 2011 according to Credit Suisse or they are using such a bound to try compensate for the quality of data from Bangladesh.....or a combination of both.
There are many other interesting bits of Data that I did not know concerning places like Thailand and Ukraine and how apparently India is quite close to them in wealth distribution even with much lower per capita income....but I don't feel like digressing and this post is quite long enough as it is. I also picked only the sections where Bangladesh was put in the table....there are many tables where Bangladesh and Pakistan do not make it....but there is interesting data there nonetheless for India and other countries/regions.
If any of you have any other questions/comments/analysis....please share here.
Arsalan mehmud
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Really I am so much impressed to see Bangladesh growing.... We Pakistanis too have to look how we can invest more and more in education specially in engineering and IT sector. and have some strong collaboration with Bangladesh + Indonesia and Malaysia.. After all we are Muslim brothers and should grow together.
There are lots and lots of opportunity in gulf countries and African countries.
Al-zakir
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How about the poor class? We need to keep in mind that our progress should be comprehensive and no one should be left behind. I am happy to report that there is a shortage of house maid in Sylhet. Lazy house wives are frustrated as good days are gone. I will happy to see this scenario all over the country. What's going on other regions brother? How are you guys doing?
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