Georgia's Middle Class in the Making: Methods of Measurement, Trends, and Constraints

Abstract

Since 2016, Georgia has been categorized as an upper middle-income economy by the World Bank. The latter corresponds to the trends from the various micro-level data sets, which suggest that the middle class has been expanding in the recent years. However, what can be referred to as 'the middle class' in the Georgian context is still largely in the making, and this process remains vulnerable to endemic problems such as high inequality, low urbanization, agricultural underdevelopment, and the existence of rather large, vulnerable social groups. Political stability, geopolitics and international economic shocks all play a role in the prospects of the middle class in Georgia.