{"type":"script","doc_desc":{"producers":[{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","abbr":"DECDI","affiliation":"World Bank - Development Impact Department","role":"Verification and preparation of metadata"}],"prod_date":"2025-11-10","version":"1"},"project_desc":{"authoring_entity":[{"name":"Sailesh Tiwari","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"stiwari@worldbank.org"},{"name":"Veronica Sonia Montalva Talledo","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"vmontalvatalledo@worldbank.org"},{"name":"Kwabena Krah","affiliation":"Independent Consultant","email":"kkrah26@gmail.com"}],"title_statement":{"title":"Reproducibility package for Striving For Economic Security: Emerging Middle Class In The East Asia And Pacific Region","idno":"RR_WLD_2025_457"},"data_statement":"Some data is restricted and has not been included in the reproducibility package. For more details, please refer to the README file.","software":[{"name":"Stata","version":"18.5 MP"}],"scripts":[{"title":"Reproducibility package for Striving For Economic Security: Emerging Middle Class In The East Asia And Pacific Region","date":"2025-11","notes":"Computational reproducibility verified by Development Impact (DECDI) Analytics team, World Bank.","instructions":"See README in reproducibility package.","file_name":"RR_WLD_2025_457","zip_package":"RR_WLD_2025_457.zip","dependencies":"Stata dependencies are listed in the ado folder."}],"repository_uri":[{"name":"Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank)","uri":"https:\/\/reproducibility.worldbank.org"}],"production_date":"2025-11-10","abstract":"East Asia and Pacific region (EAP) has made remarkable progress on poverty reduction, transforming the economic lives of hundreds of millions of people. With growth prospects dimmer in a world that is increasingly polarized, the question of what it will take to convert the success in poverty reduction into a similar success in growing and nurturing the emergent middle class has become critical for the region. Providing an updated definition of middle class that is grounded in the concept of economic security, this paper presents new evidence on the size, evolution, and characteristics of the region\u2019s middle class. Results show that around a third of the region\u2019s population belongs to the middle class while more than half still live in relative poverty and vulnerability. From a global perspective, the region stands out for the fastest rate of expansion of the middle-class, but China accounts for a large share of this progress. In fact, excluding China, middle-class growth in the rest of the region has stalled in recent years. A larger share of the region\u2019s poor today live in urban areas than a decade earlier (47 percent vs 34 percent) suggesting a marked progress on rural convergence. Still, urban areas continue to provide better prospects for upward mobility into the middle class (44 percent) than rural areas (22 percent). Jobs have been pivotal in driving middle-class growth in the region and future mobility prospects will continue to depend on countries being able to generate more and better-quality jobs. Improving quality of services and closing the remaining gaps across economic classes will be crucial for building human capital and ensuring upward mobility for all. This will also necessitate and reinforce the emerging middle class\u2019s commitment to the social contract, including greater tax contributions. ","geographic_units":[{"name":"World","code":"WLD"},{"name":"East Asia and Pacific","code":"EAP"}],"keywords":[{"name":"Economic Mobility"},{"name":"Middle Class"},{"name":"Jobs"}],"output":[{"type":"Working Paper","description":"Policy Research Working Papers (PRWP)","title":"Striving For Economic Security: Emerging Middle Class In The East Asia And Pacific Region"}],"language":[{"name":"English","code":"EN"}],"disclaimer":"The materials in the reproducibility packages are distributed as they were prepared by the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development\/The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this event do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, the Executive Directors of the World Bank, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the materials included in the reproducibility package.","license":[{"name":"Modified BSD3","uri":"https:\/\/opensource.org\/license\/bsd-3-clause\/"}],"contacts":[{"name":"Sailesh Tiwari","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"stiwari@worldbank.org"},{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"reproducibility@worldbank.org"}],"datasets":[{"name":"Harmonized official household surveys - Malaysia","note":"Source: World Bank.\nData was obtained from the World Bank Malaysia Country Office Poverty Economist.\nAll data files are listed in the README (28 in total).\nData was accessed in July 2025.","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\n\"Harmonized official household surveys - Malaysia\" [dataset].\nUnpublished data.\nAccessed July 2025."},{"name":"Harmonized official household surveys - Viet Nam and Pacific Island Countries","note":"Source: World Bank.\nData was accessed using the WB-internal Stata package DataLibWeb, after obtaining approval from the Viet Nam and Pacific Island World Bank Poverty Economists.\nAll data files are listed in the README (103 in total).\nData was accessed in July 2025.","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\n\"Harmonized official household surveys - Viet Nam and Pacific Island Countries\" [dataset].\nUnpublished data.\nAccessed July 2025."},{"name":"Harmonized official household surveys - Indonesia, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand, and Timor-Leste","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.","note":"Source: World Bank.\nData was accessed using the WB-internal Stata package DataLibWeb, after obtaining approval from the East Asia and Pacific Team for Statistical Development.\nAll data files are listed in the README (177 in total).\nData was accessed in July 2025.","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\n\"Harmonized official household surveys - Indonesia, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand, and Timor-Leste\" [dataset].\nUnpublished data.\nAccessed July 2025."},{"name":"China Family Panel Survey","note":"Source: Institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University.\nAll data files are listed in the README (13 in total).\nData was accessed in February 2024.","access_type":"Data access requires human approval and is not included in the reproducibility package.","uri":"https:\/\/www.isss.pku.edu.cn\/cfps\/en\/data\/public\/index.htm?CSRFT=36YT-2FOZ-J7IP-RZ2Z-6711-PRL4-R17E-A273","citation":"Institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University.\nn.d.\n\"China Family Panel Survey\" [dataset].\nAccessed from https:\/\/www.isss.pku.edu.cn\/cfps\/en\/data\/public\/index.htm?CSRFT=36YT-2FOZ-J7IP-RZ2Z-6711-PRL4-R17E-A273.\nAccessed February 2024."},{"name":"China Synthetic Income Distribution","note":"Source: World Bank, DECDA.\nAll data files are listed in the README (60 in total).\nData was obtained from the World Bank China Country Office Poverty Economist.\nData was accessed in September 2025.","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\n\"China Synthetic Income Distribution\" [dataset].\nUnpublished data.\nAccessed September 2025."},{"name":"Myanmar 2024 Household Phone Survey","note":"Source: World Bank.\nData was obtained from the World Bank Myanmar Poverty Economist.\nData files: \"01-data\/01-source-data\/Inputs_Projections\/Phone_Surveys2024.dta\", \"01-data\/01-source-data\/Inputs_Projections\/povrates_2024_phonesurveys.dta\".\nData was accessed in September 2025.","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\n\"Myanmar 2024 Household Phone Survey\" [dataset].\nUnpublished data.\nAccessed September 2025."},{"name":"Consumer Price Indices and Purchase Parity Power Data","note":"Source: World Bank. Data was accessed using the WB-internal Stata package DataLibWeb (see details in the README).\nData file: \"01-data\/01-source-data\/HH_surveys\/_cpi\/Final_CPI_PPP_to_be_used_v13.dta\".\nAccessed in September 2025.","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\n\"Consumer Price Indices and Purchase Parity Power Data\" [dataset].\nUnpublished data.\nAccessed September 2025."},{"name":"Poverty and Inequality Indicators","note":"Source: World Bank. Data was accessed using the \"pip\" Stata package (see README for details).\nData file: \"01-data\/01-source-data\/z.Other\/pip_regional_allpovlines.dta\"\nAccessed in September 2025.","uri":"https:\/\/pip.worldbank.org\/","access_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","license":"CC-BY 4.0 with additional terms specified in the license URL","license_uri":"https:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/about\/legal\/terms-of-use-for-datasets","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\n\"Poverty and Inequality Indicators\" [dataset].\nRetrieved from pip (Stata package).\nAccessed September 2025."},{"name":"Word Development Indicators","note":"Source: World Bank. Data was accessed using the Stata package \"wbopendata\" (see README for details).\nData file: \"01-data\/01-source-data\/z.Other\/wbopendata_2025_09_28.dta\", \"01-data\/01-source-data\/WVS\/national_indicators.dta\".\nAccessed in September 2025.","uri":"https:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/source\/world-development-indicators","access_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","license":"CC-BY 4.0 with additional terms specified in the license URL","license_uri":"https:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/about\/legal\/terms-of-use-for-datasets","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\n\"World Development Indicators\" [dataset].\nRetrieved from wbopendata (Stata package).\nAccessed September 2025."},{"name":"Provincial cost of living data for China - Supplementary data for Spatial Price Differences in China: Estimates and Implications","note":"Source: Brandt, L., Holz, C. A.\nData file: \"01-data\/01-source-data\/HH_surveys\/CHN\/Provincial Cost of Living from Brandt and Holz EDCC 2006 - v2.xlsx\".\nData was accessed in April 2024.","access_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","uri":"https:\/\/www.journals.uchicago.edu\/doi\/suppl\/10.1086\/505722","citation":"Brandt, L., Holz, C. A.\n2006.\n\"Provincial cost of living data for China - Supplementary data for Spatial Price Differences in China: Estimates and Implications\" [dataset].\nDownloaded from https:\/\/www.journals.uchicago.edu\/doi\/suppl\/10.1086\/505722.\nAccessed April 2024."},{"name":"GDP and Private Consumption Projections for EAP countries","note":"Source: World Bank. Data was manually compiled from the report \"Macro Poverty Outlook: Country-by-country Analysis and Projections for the Developing World\" (https:\/\/thedocs.worldbank.org\/en\/doc\/c6aceb75bed03729ef4ff9404dd7f125-0500012021\/related\/mpo-eap.pdf).\nData file: \"01-data\/01-source-data\/Inputs_Projections\/00.MFMODcsv_2025-09-15.dta\".\nData was accessed in October 2025.","access_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","citation":"World Bank.\n2025.\n\"GDP and Private Consumption Projections for EAP countries\" [dataset].\nRetrieved from \"Macro Poverty Outlook: Country-by-country Analysis and Projections for the Developing World\" (https:\/\/thedocs.worldbank.org\/en\/doc\/c6aceb75bed03729ef4ff9404dd7f125-0500012021\/related\/mpo-eap.pdf).\nAccessed October 2025."},{"name":"GDP projections from World Economic Outlook","note":"Source: International Monetary Fund.\nData was manually compiled from the report \"World Economic Outlook Update, July 2025: Global Economy: Tenuous Resilience amid Persistent Uncertainty\" (https:\/\/https:\/\/www.imf.org\/en\/publications\/weo\/issues\/2025\/07\/29\/world-economic-outlook-update-july-2025).\nData file: \"01-data\/01-source-data\/Inputs_Projections\/00.Input_data_several_sources_2025-09-15\", sheet: \"WEO_Data_Stata\".\nData was accessed in July 2025.","access_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","license_uri":"https:\/\/www.imf.org\/en\/about\/copyright-and-terms#terms","citation":"International Monetary Fund.\n2025.\n\"GDP projections from World Economic Outlook\" [dataset].\nRetrieved from \"World Economic Outlook Update, July 2025: Global Economy: Tenuous Resilience amid Persistent Uncertainty\" (https:\/\/https:\/\/www.imf.org\/en\/publications\/weo\/issues\/2025\/07\/29\/world-economic-outlook-update-july-2025).\nAccessed July 2025."},{"name":"Population Estimates and Projections","access_type":"Source: World Bank.\nData file: \"01-data\/01-source-data\/Inputs_Projections\/00.Input_data_several_sources_2025-09-15\", sheet: \"WDI_pop_Stata\".\nAccessed in August 2025.","license":"CC-BY 4.0 with additional terms specified in the license URL","license_uri":"https:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/about\/legal\/terms-of-use-for-datasets","uri":"https:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/source\/population-estimates-and-projections","citation":"World Bank.\nn.d.\n\"Population Estimates and Projections\" [dataset].\nDownloaded from https:\/\/databank.worldbank.org\/source\/population-estimates-and-projections.\nAccessed August 2025."},{"name":"World Values Survey","note":"Source: World Values Survey Association.\n","uri":"https:\/\/www.worldvaluessurvey.org\/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp","license_uri":"https:\/\/www.worldvaluessurvey.org\/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp","access_type":"Data is publicly available but does not allow redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.\nData was downloaded for each country and year individually, organized by country and year in the folder \"01-data\/01-source-data\/WVS\/\", and renamed to \"WVS_{year}.dta\".\nAll data files are listed in the README (64 in total).\nData was accessed in June 2024. Dataset version accessed was 5.0 and might not correspond to the version currently available.","citation":"Haerpfer, C., Inglehart, R., Moreno, A., Welzel, C., Kizilova, K., Diez-Medrano J., M. Lagos, P. Norris, E. Ponarin & B. Puranen (eds.).\n2022.\n\"World Values Survey: Round Seven \u2013 Country-Pooled Datafile Version 5.0\" [dataset].\nMadrid, Spain & Vienna, Austria: JD Systems Institute & WVSA Secretariat.\nDownloaded from https:\/\/www.worldvaluessurvey.org\/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp\nAccessed June 2024."}],"technology_requirements":"Runtime: 30 minutes.","technology_environment":"Paper exhibits were reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:\n\u2022 OS: Windows 11 Enterprise, version 24H2\n\u2022 Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 7 165U (2.10 GHz)\n\u2022 Memory available: 32 GB","reproduction_instructions":"**1. Access the data:** several of the datasets required to run the reproducibility package are restricted and not included in the reproducibility package. Users need to gain access to the data before being able to run the entire code. See the section Datasets for more information.\n**2. Run the code:** Change the file path in the do-file \"_Master.do\" and run it.\n\nSince not all the data are included, the package includes the results produced in the reproducibility verification. These files can be used to review the results presented in the paper."},"tags":[{"tag":"DOI"},{"tag":"Open Code"},{"tag":"Restricted Data"}],"schematype":"script"}