Poverty Risk of Female-Headed Households on Mexico's Northern Border

Abstract

The objective of finding out which households headed by women face a risk of poverty compared to those headed by men, due to the lower income received by women on the northern border of Mexico. To do this, we measure poverty by gender with Sen’s Lp method, and to measure the risk of poverty in households headed by women, the empirical method of Carrera and Camberos, 2014 and Carrera, Camberos and Bracamontes, 2015 is used. We use the discrimination method of Oaxaca-Blinder to find out if the risk of poverty is explained by differences in human capital, but also by discrimination, without knowing which is determining. The information sources are from the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey (ENIGH) of the National System of Statistical and Geographical Information (INEGI), as well as data from the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL) per year 2018. The results show that households headed by women present a risk of poverty compared to those headed by men, mostly in the states of Sonora and Coahuila on the northern border of Mexico, thus having a pattern to determine feminization in this region.