The lower class it is the poorest segment of the population of human society. It is characterized by having great deficiencies in their way of life and limitations in terms of access to economic resources. They are generally unemployed people, who do not have their own home or other essential assets or properties to live.
People with very low educational levels belong to this socioeconomic class, with only a primary education and some with a secondary education. Some temporary or independent workers also fall into this class. Lower class families do not have good basic services in their homes.
They tend to live in crowded conditions and do not eat balanced meals or eat enough. They are also unable to purchase appropriate clothing and footwear and do not have medical services. They receive state subsidies for their food, education and medical care in industrialized countries.
On the other hand, in poor countries they hardly have access to the most basic resources for their subsistence, since they lack welfare services. People belonging to the lower socioeconomic class live on a daily income of between $ 1 and $ 10, depending on the country.
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Historically, society has been stratified into social classes or hierarchies, from primitive man to the Modern Age. In Europe and America, before and after the Spanish and Portuguese colonization, society was divided into social classes.
For example, in the Middle Ages social classes were made up of three large groups: the nobility, the clergy (cardinals, bishops, priests and monks) and the peasants or vassals. The latter were the lowest class in society.
The same happened in the pre-Hispanic societies of America, which were stratified in various social classes. The nobles (chiefs, chiefs and their families), priests or shamans, merchants and artisans, warriors and servants or townspeople; serfdom was the lower social class.
Later, with the advent of capitalist society as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, social classes originated: in the first place there was the upper class, made up of the nobility, rich merchants and factory owners, which Karl Marx called The bourgeoisie.
In second place was the middle class, made up of technicians and other professionals, public officials, courtiers, men of science, military and literary men, among others. Third was the lower class, in which the figure of the worker who worked in the factories emerged, often together with his family.
At the dawn of industrial society, this social class was harshly exploited with long working hours of between 14 and 18 hours a day..
From this, Marxism developed a whole theory around surplus value and the appropriation of the worker's labor power by the bourgeoisie.
The lower class is also called the working or proletarian class, according to the Marxist conceptualization. The proletariat included people who worked in factories and mines; these people sold their labor power in exchange for a salary and most lived in subhuman conditions.
These factory working conditions were maintained throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but this situation changed with the union struggles that promoted the reduction of the working day to eight hours a day..
The concept of social class, as we know it today, although with some variations, was developed by Marxism. This current of thought attached great importance to the class structure of society..
Through class conflict, he tried to explain the relations of production and the changes in nineteenth-century capitalist society.
At present, the concept of social class not only involves the level of income, but also the way in which the individual lives and thinks. That is why it is called socioeconomic class, since a certain social class is not entirely homogeneous in terms of income, tastes, education and way of life.
There are people who move between one social class and another; Hence, in social stratification, we speak of socioeconomic levels to better characterize belonging to a certain social group.
Marxism calls a lumpen-proletariat or sub-proletariat a lower population layer from the social point of view than the level of the proletariat. In addition to being poor, they are considered lacking in class consciousness.
- Their levels of education are very basic. Barely completed primary education and only some, secondary education.
- They are unemployed people or casual and independent workers, who do unattractive and dangerous jobs. Some are domestic workers.
- Lower-class families live on incomes below $ 10 a day in the most backward countries.
- In general, they do not own a home or any other type of property or property (vehicles, electrical appliances, etc.). Rather, they live crammed in unhealthy homes that do not have optimal public services (drinking water, electricity and gas, sewers or drains).
- They do not have insurance or regular medical attention, nor can they buy medicine in case of illness.
- In general, the lower class population has high mortality rates.
- They live in unsafe areas with high crime rates.
- They are unstable families, with high degrees of disintegration of the family nucleus where the father or mother is not present.
- Throughout the world, and particularly in poor countries, the lower class is the largest in society.
Almost all the countries of the world, with few exceptions, have a low socioeconomic class; Of course, with lower levels of social inequality between one and the other, according to the income level of each one..
The five countries in the world with the largest lower class (for being the poorest) are located on the African continent. They are as follows:
It has an annual per capita income of less than US $ 454.30 and a very low level of social development. Their poverty is a consequence of constant wars and bad governments.
It has an annual per capita income of less than US $ 415.40. It is among the most underdeveloped nations in the world, it has high rates of infant mortality and malnutrition.
The inhabitants of this nation live with a per capita income of less than 333.20 US dollars per year. This country has been the victim of internal conflicts and prolonged political and economic instability; its service infrastructure is very poor.
The annual per capita income of its inhabitants is less than 267.10 US dollars. This country has also been the victim of constant and bloody wars. It is the second poorest nation in the world.
Due to its per capita income levels below US $ 226.50 and its economic and social backwardness, Malawi is the poorest country; therefore, it has the largest lower class in the world.
Currently, the countries with the highest lower class in Latin America are:
- Haiti.
- Paraguay.
- The Savior.
- Costa Rica.
- Venezuela.
- Cuba.
- Mexico.
According to optimistic calculations by the BBVA bank, the world's lower class will decrease by 905 million people in 2025. For its part, the lower-middle class will increase by 637 million people, while the middle class will increase by 332 million.
On the other hand, the upper-middle class will add 290 million people and the world's rich population will grow to 403 million..
According to these projections, the lower-middle class will represent 40% of the world's population (3,100 million people), followed by the middle-middle class, the upper-middle class and the rich, who will add 3,000 million people to 37 % of the population. The lower class will represent 24% of the population, with 1.9 billion people.
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