Moderate Prosperity, an adaptation of the Middle Class concept to a Malagasy rural area: the case of Itasy

We discuss and test the relevance of the adaptation of the controversial sociological concept of “Middle Class” to African rural areas. We propose the concept of Moderate Prosperity and apply it to the Malagasy rural area, particularly in the Itasy region. This paper aims to emphasize the rural dynamics and to understand the ongoing socioeconomic changes in Madagascar as an agriculture-based country. Adopting a case study, we use detailed data on 510 households from the 2008 Itasy Observatory. We first define Moderate Prosperity households as being those in the top three quintiles of the income distribution. Then we classify the households thus identified using, simultaneously, the household head’s education level, the household’s income structure and its rice land tenure. We describe five different Moderate Prosperity clusters that reflect the agro-economic diversity of Itasy : (i) the large, vulnerable group of uneducated, non-farming and livestock farming households with formal land title, (ii) the traditional group of uneducated rice farmers with large holdings, (iii) the emerging group of skilled, polyculture farmers with traditional land ownership, (iv) the upper moderate group of educated non-agricultural workers and (v) the lower moderate cluster of skilled smallholders in independent and non-farm activities without any land tenure.