Perceptions of social class in Africa. Results from a conjoint experiment

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• dc.contributor.author Wietzke, Frank Borge
• dc.date.accessioned 2024-05-14T07:13:04Z
• dc.date.embargoEnd info:eu-repo/date/embargoEnd/2026-06-30
• dc.date.issued 2024
• dc.description.abstract Africa’s so-called ‘new middle classes’ are receiving increasing attention. So far, much of this debate has been based on ‘objective’ criteria like household income or asset wealth. This article follows an emerging literature that asks Africans directly how they perceive class differences in their societies. In doing so we engage with the inherent multidimensionality of class experiences, which makes it harder for respondents to distinguish their own and others’ class status and to determine which indicators should enter into a socially meaningful conceptualization of class. The article innovates by addressing these challenges with the help of a factorial or ‘conjoint’ experiment. Conjoint experiments are well suited for analyzing complex multidimensional phenomena like class because they allow researchers to distinguish the separate effects of individual treatment components on outcomes such as perceived class status. Using primary survey data from Kenya, we find that the shift to the experimental setting reduces respondents’ problems to distinguish people’s class status, especially at the middle of the socio-economic ladder. The analysis also shows that income can serve as a useful proxy for subjective class. Nonetheless, other non-monetary dimensions like assets, education, or employment type also enter with small but statistically significant effects. Finally, we find that perceptions of ‘middle-classness’ often overlap with relatively severe experiences of economic insecurity. This latter result suggests that Western concepts of economically secure middle classes should not be uncritically applied to a lower-income region like Africa. The results hold across a range of robustness and external validity tests using Kenyan and multi-country Afrobarometer survey data.
• dc.description.sponsorship This study was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy Industry and Competitiveness (MINECO) through its Academic Excellence and Societal Challenges initiative [grant numbers CSO2017-87350-P and PID2022-140461NB-I00] and through the European Research Council [grant number 864333].
• dc.embargo.liftdate 2026-06-30
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
• dc.identifier.citation Wietzke FB. Perceptions of social class in Africa. Results from a conjoint experiment. World Dev. 2024 Jun;178:106576. DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106576
• dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106576
• dc.identifier.issn 0305-750X
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/60136
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher Elsevier
• dc.relation.ispartof World development. 2024 Jun;178:106576
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/864333
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/CSO2017-87350-P
• dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/3PE/PID2022-140461NB-I00
• dc.rights © Elsevier http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106576
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess
• dc.subject.keyword Socio-economic class
• dc.subject.keyword Africa
• dc.subject.keyword Kenya
• dc.subject.keyword Survey experiment
• dc.subject.keyword Poverty
• dc.subject.keyword Inequality
• dc.title Perceptions of social class in Africa. Results from a conjoint experiment
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
• dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion