Job Discussion Forums

[MotherF]

I'm starting a new thread because we are getting quite a ways off topic in http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/posting.php?mode=reply&t=95839

I think there is a VERY wide range of people who would self classify themselves as middle class in Mexico. I live in a housing development where almost all the owners of the houses bought them through a Mexican government sponsored housing scheme. I reckon that 100% of my neighbors would think describe themselves as middle class. After all they all like in finished houses with glass in the windows, solid floors, running water and a sewage system. We don't need to look very far outside of our development to see families that don't have any of those things. So no one living here would think they are poor. Also, the houses come in two sizes, but even the largest ones are smaller than most US homes, so no one living here would think of themselves as rich either. If they aren't poor, and they aren't rich, then they must be middle class, right?
But yet, it's clear there is a lot of variety. A lot of the neighbors work at the university where I work, so I have an idea about what the earn. There are a few in which both members of the couple are professors--their combined income must be approaching 40,000 a month. A few houses down is a garderner at the university, his wife doesn't work. He probably earns less than 7,000 pesos a month. And I'm sure some of my neighbors earn less than that--there are taxi drivers and welders, carpentiers, hair stylists. All whose earning are variable.

Yet, they all consider themselves middle class.

[MotherF]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/on-the-middle-class-lessons-from-latin-america.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

Is this written by the same Jorge Casta�eda who was Fox's Forigen Affairs Secretary? and Presidential Candidate in 2004?

[BadBeagleBad]

Interesting topic. I live in a fairly mixed area, income wise, with a mix of teachers, lawyers, dentists, accountants, small business owners, but some taxi drivers and skilled trademen. Pretty much everyone owns their own house or apartment. There are two houses that I would consider very upper middle class, in terms of size and beauty. I think home ownership is what makes many people feel middle class. Maybe having enough to live on, and a little extra. I think in the US it is less economic and more education that determines if you are middle class, but not so much in Mexico, where a taco vendor can make more than a teacher (and often does).

[Guy Courchesne]

[Isla Guapa]

[Guy Courchesne]

I raised my eyebrow some when I read that (part of the preface in his book)...I suspected it was a mistranslation from Spanish actually. Mexico as a country is referred to as a middle-class or middle income country, talking about GDP and what not, without specifying on classes or family income.

[Isla Guapa]

[boomerexpat]

It would definitely help to have statistics with it. I guess it is who you are comparing yourself to when you use subjective measures. In the US there are people who consider themselves middle class who are affluent and people who consider themselves struggling who would be considered affluent in many other countries.

But there are so many things that complicate it esp how strong the safety net is and how good pub services are.

When I think of living on a median income, one pic comes to mind when I visualize Switzerland and a completely diff pic comes to mind when I imagine it in Somalia.

Mexico is somewhere in between but based on my limited time spent there I would imagine a median income in Mexico would be considered a lower working class one in the US. But just a hunch.

[BadBeagleBad]