Rise of the middle class in Latin America Research Paper

Rise of the middle class in Latin America - Research Paper Example Venezuela is the most urbanized and largest economy of Latin America whereas Argentina is the second largest and Colombia holds the third position, in terms of GDP (Venezuela Analysis, 2013). Latin America puts huge emphasize on economic integration since the inception of Latin American Free Trade Association and Central American Common Market in 1960s. In fact, the economy has undergone various structural changes due to the effect of a number of economic influences such as World Wars, financial crisis in 2008 and several ongoing civil wars. However, the internal economic development program of this continent has been uninterrupted by the policies taken by the economy such as import substitution by industrialization and public investment on health sector (Balderston, Gonzalez and LÃ ³pez, 2000). All these factors have led the economy to experience population explosion. Moreover, as the education system and employment opportunities began to expand combining with enhanced social secur ity, the economy experienced rise of middle class society in Latin America. The paper will explore the nature and determinates of economic growth and rise of middle class in Latin America, especially concentrating on the three biggest economies of the constitute such as Venezuela, Argentina and Colombia as well as possible consequences of such social transformation. Since decades, poverty continued to be the main challenge for the economy of Latin America. However, after experiencing a long series of stagflation, the population of Latin America started expanding and overtimes the middle class evolved in a major proportion of the population. Prior to this, the demographics of Latin America were characterized by the presence of vulnerable income group, suffering from economic insecurity (LÃ ³pez-Calva and Juarez, 2013). However, over a period of time, economic growth as well as