World Cup 2014: New Report Finds Tournament Displays Latin America’s Growing Middle Class

The World Cup 2014 in Brazil is into its second week and it has attracted fans from all over the world, making it a truly global spectacle. What is significant about this particular World Cup is that it has attracted fans from across Latin America. This, according to the New York Times, is indicative of a growing middle class across the region which supports a level of travel that ten years ago would not have been possible. Fans from Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Chile and more have made the journey.

According to the New York Times article, "the arrival in Brazil this year of more than 200,000 Spanish-speaking fans from large nations like Mexico and Colombia and smaller ones like Costa Rica and Uruguay exemplifies one of Latin America’s most profound shifts since the start of the century: the rise of the middle class." While indeed the proximity to Brazil from many of these countries has facilitated travel, such expensive vactions ten years ago would have been unthinkable.

Indeed, countries like Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have seen a relatively large increase in economic prosperity and wealth distribution. The New York Times piece reveals that "Latin America’s middle class has grown 60.3 percent since 2003, according to the Inter-American Development Bank. During that period, the population living in poverty declined by 34 percent. Altogether, the World Bank puts the middle class at about 30 percent of Latin America’s population."

While there is still certainly a large degree of poverty across the region as well as tremendous inequality in certain countries, the enormous presence of Latin American fans at the World Cup in Brazil is indicative of significant changes across the region.