China's middle class 10 times larger than that in India
Kounteya Sinha, TNN | Oct 14, 2014, 09.20PM IST
LONDON: The swelling middle class has long been India's strength, driving the country's economy.
But it now seems that China has emerged as home to the world's largest number of people belonging to the "middle class".
Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Report 2014 released on Tuesday says that there are one billion adults at present who belong to the middle class - with wealth anywhere between $10,000-$100,000 range.
With a net worth of $31 trillion, this group holds considerable economic clout
However according to the report, India has just 3% of the global middle class, and that share has changed very little during the past decade.
In contrast, China's share of the middle class has doubled since 2000 and now covers one-third of the global membership, 10 times the share of India.
By 2016, India's middle class was expected to swell up to 267 million people according to the National Council for Applied Economic Research's (NCAER) Centre for Macro Consumer Research. It predicts that by 2015-16, India will be a country of 53.3 million middle class households, translating into 267 million people falling in the category according to 'household income'. As per the criteria, a family with an annual income between Rs 3.4 lakh to Rs 17 lakh (at 2009-10 price levels) falls in the middle class category.
Currently India has 31.4 million middle class households (160 million individuals).
The Credit Suisse report says that the total global household wealth increased in current dollar terms to $263 trillion, or $56,000 per adult in the world, an all-time high for average net worth.
Aggregate household wealth has more than doubled since the start of the millennium from $117 trillion in 2000 to $263 trillion in mid-2014.
Over the same period, personal wealth in India and China has risen by a factor of 3.1 and 4.6 respectively. Allowing for the rise in the adult population, global net worth per adult has increased by 77% from 2000, an average growth rate of 4.3% per annum. Despite recording a 15% decline during the financial crisis, wealth per adult has increased each year since 2008 and is now 7% above its pre-crisis peak.
India has seen rapid growth in wealth measured in domestic terms since the year 2000. In rupees, wealth per adult has grown quite steadily, averaging an 8% annual increase over
2000-2014. Until the global financial crisis, wealth also rose strongly in US dollar terms, from $2,040 in 2000 to $5,100 in 2007. After falling 25% in 2008, it rebounded, reaching $ 5,400 in 2010, but then fell 13% in 2011 due to adverse exchange rate movements.
"As is common in the developing world, household wealth in India is heavily skewed towards property and other real assets, which make up 86% of estimated household assets".
While wealth has been rising strongly in India, and the ranks of the middle class and wealthy have been swelling, not everyone has shared in this growth and there is still a great deal of poverty. This is reflected in the fact that 95% of the adult population has wealth below $10,000.
At the other end of the scale, a very small proportion of the population (just 0.3%) has a net worth over $100,000.
However, due to India's large population, this translates into 2.4 million people. India has 238,000 members of the top 1% of global wealth holders, which equates to a 0.5% share.
The report says "We estimate that 1,000 adults have wealth over $50 million and 650 people own more than $100 million".
India will also see a 61% increase in the number of millionaires between 2014 and 2019 - 182 now to 294 millionaires in 2019.
For the first time this year, more than 400 million adults globally have wealth above $100,000, against 217 million at the start of the century.
China's middle class 10 times larger than that in India - The Times of India