Poverty In Mexico Research Articles

Integration of tractor and combines industry with automotive industry as a strategy to reduce rural poverty in Mexico

In Mexico, the transfer of agricultural technology has been a process hampered for several reasons, due to which subsistence agriculture was dependent on animal traction and human power. Despite the introduction of tractors and harvesters that have been imported and in some cases assembled in the country, with a percentage of domestic components, their adoption has been exploited only in medium and large-sized agricultural enterprises by farmers engaged in commercial agriculture, neglecting smallholders. Mexico is a major exporter of tractors in the segment of medium power and a leader in the automotive industry, but the country has high levels of poverty with low productivity in agriculture. The country can become a leader in the manufacture of tractors in the segments of low power, harvesters and power tillers. Manufacturing industry of these goods should not be treated as a separate sector, as has happened to date, but should be integrated into the automotive industry. If low power tractors, tractor powered harvesters and power tillers are made available at affordable prices for small land holders, it can contribute immensely in agricultural growth in the country and would reduce rural poverty. In this paper current status of the assembly of tractors, harvesters and automotive industry in Mexico is detailed, finally discussing the objective of integration of these industries and its benefits for the agricultural and manufacturing sector.

El impacto en los primeros años de aplicación del programa Oportunidades por tipo de pobreza en México y Baja California, 2002–2006

En este trabajo se muestra el limitado impacto del programa Oportunidades en la reducción de la pobreza en México y Baja California durante el periodo de estudio 2002–2006, lo que obedece a la insuficiencia de recursos y la exclusión de hogares pobres. En el país los tres tipos de pobreza tuvieron una modesta reducción y en Baja California la pobreza de capacidades disminuyó ligeramente, pero la pobreza alimentaria y la patrimonial se incrementaron pese a Oportunidades.

Rural and Urban Poverty in Mexico 1995-2013. A Stochastic Analysis

Este articulo busca modelar las nuevas corrientes teoricas de la medicion multidimensional de la pobreza, el modelo propuesto considera a la pobreza de capacidades y a la pobreza de necesidades como elementos complementarios y no como sustitutos (discutida ampliamente en la literatura en la materia) en congruencia con las nuevas corrientes que abonan a una definicion multifactorial, a traves de un modelo estocastico se busca romper el paradigma tradicional de medir la pobreza con indicadores estaticos y modelos deterministas, al mismo tiempo de aportar una imagen dinamica de la evolucion de la pobreza, la cual tiene una memoria historica en su formacion, este modelo se aplica a las distintas dimensiones de la pobreza por ingresos en Mexico discriminando entre la poblacion de las zonas rurales y urbanas

Growth with Equity for the Development of Mexico: Poverty, Inequality, and Economic Growth (1992–2008)

This paper constitutes an attempt to determine the relative contribution of changes in economic growth and in the distribution of income to changes in poverty in Mexico. Our findings clearly indicate that growth with redistribution (lower income inequality) was the key to reducing poverty continuously and in an important manner during 2000–2006. However, after 2006, decreasing per-capita income, coupled with the persistently high inequality (Gini of 52%), caused the reversal of the favorable trend observed since 1996, raising poverty to pre-2002 levels. Consequently, it is argued that, for Mexico, a middle-income country exhibiting quite low growth rates and high inequality levels, the further improvement in its distribution of income and assets is essential if the economy is to succeed in making a real dent in poverty. For that purpose, the implementation of an active pro-poor growth policy should be strongly encouraged.

A case of 'No man's land' in economics: price indexes and their applications

Even though price indexes are one of the great inventions of economics, the theory of index numbers and its applications are ignored by the average economist. While in contrast, the theory of economic index numbers has attracted some of the best minds over the years. Therefore, it seems that in economics, theory of price indexes and its applications constitute a case of 'No man's land'. Our purpose is precisely to illustrate its relevance using a three-step strategy. In the first step, we highlight the sense of the so-called 'basic problem of index numbers' by means of evoking its practical origin, namely, the measurement of the purchasing power of an Oxford student. In the second step, we show the significance of the economic approach using as a case the debate about the appropriate conceptual framework for the Consumer Price Index in the USA. In the third step, we display some alternatives to the plutocratic aggregate method, and we establish its relevance using as an example the measurement of the multidimensional poverty in Mexico.

Equity in Access, Retentionand Graduation in Higher Education in Mexico

Equity in Access, Retentionand Graduation in Higher Education in Mexico Jesús Ruiz-Flores, José Antonio Ramírez-Diaz, Arturo Benítez-Zavala Abstract This text sets the need to identify indicators that account for the extent to which Higher Education Institutions promote equity of access, retention and graduation of socially vulnerable groups. The text begins with a characterization of the problem of poverty in Mexico in the Latin American context. Then comes the concept of equity in the access to higher education in Mexico, and ends with a set of indicators of equity in higher education subsystem capable of analyzing the structural conditions that within Higher Education Institutions favor or impede completing the formative processes of students who are in vulnerable situations. Next, we present the Likert Scale developed to evaluate on the basis of the perception of university officers the extent to which Higher Education Institutions attends the needs of vulnerable people. This study is in course but we advance that the analysis of this situation may provide feedback to design educational and university policy to reorient the programs and actions for students retention. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jehd.v3n4a20

Una caracterización de la pobreza femenina en México conforme al modelo colectivo de hogar

En este texto se examinan, tal como exhorta la cepal (2004), la evidencia que existe acerca de la pobreza femenina en México y sus causas, tomando como base la Encuesta Nacional de Ingreso y Gasto de los Hogares 2008. Se mide la pobreza tomando en cuenta una consideración más realista acerca de los recursos que las mujeres tienen a su disposición, para lo cual se aplica el modelo colectivo de hogar. Se exponen estadísticas descriptivas que muestran la relación de la pobreza femenina y masculina con otras divisiones sociales. Posteriormente se construye un modelo para determinar el peso específico en la explicación de la pobreza femenina de los tres mecanismos que distribuyen recursos en la sociedad: el mercado, el Estado y la familia.

Nutritional Intake and Poverty in Mexico: 1984–2010

Using nutritional information of food items acquired by each household, we evaluate how Mexico's nutritional deficiency (calorie and protein) has changed over time. Our extensive dataset combines household surveys from 1984, 1989, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. We find per capita calorie intake has decreased over time for both urban and rural households. The pattern is similar to the case of India, where a decline in calorie intake between 1983 and 2005 has been documented. In both urban and rural areas, nutritional deficiency is increasing over time. Unlike the case of India, we find strong declines in calorie intake for the bottom expenditure quartile of the population. We find that increased prices of nutrients can only partly explain the calorie and protein intake drop.

Discussion on macro, meso and microstructures in the mass migration Mexico-United States: late twentieth century and the early twenty-first. A different perspective to understanding the phenomenon of great importance for Mexico

En este artículo se propone, a la luz de novedosos planteamientos teórico e historiográficos,This paper proposes a novel view of theoretical and historiographical approaches, as a first attempt, discussing the multicausal nature of contemporary international migration Mexico- United States. The intention is not going deeper into the different causal mechanisms, but only list them and ponder their interaction to better understand this phenomenon that goes beyond the macro-level considerations (economic and political). Migration, understood as a social process, manifests various causes and consequences in their past and present. And, in the case of the mass migration of Mexicans to the United States in recent decades, it is givable to think that this is a product of historical trends, economic asymmetries, of deep social inequalities and poverty in Mexico, of push and the pull factors, tradition and socialization migrant, social networks, transnational communities, symbolisms and collective imaginaries, modernization in transport and communication, migration industry, cultural values and psychological components, among others. It proposal is to analyze briefly this binational contemporary phenomenon under the epistemological consideration that migration is a social process. For this, macro, meso and microstructures will be essential in the explanation.

Predictors of Social and Educational Mobility in Mexican Recipients of a Governmental Welfare Program: A Psychosocial Approach

The aim of this study is to identify the factors predicting social and educational mobility in persons living in extreme poverty in Mexico by analyzing a broad set of personal, familial, educational and social variables. A total of 913 adults were interviewed, 65.2 percent of whom were women, with an average age of 43.71 years. A regression analysis has identified depression, religiosity, locus of control, verbal skills, social support, and age as predictors of intra-generational social mobility, while parents’ educational attainment and parenting style as well as individuals’ intelligence, school grades, time spent on homework, and age predicted inter-generational educational mobility. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for this segment of the population.

Demand-Based Cost-of-Children Estimates and Child Poverty

Abstract This paper compares alternative demand-based equivalence scales for the cost of children to assess child poverty in Mexico. The models estimated here range from single-equation models, such as those of Engel and Rothbarth, to a complete demand system approach with fixed price effects. The results found in this study favor the generalization of the complete demand system equivalence scales over the other models. Despite the differences in the alternative models, the ranking of households with children and overall populations is insensitive to different equivalence scales and poverty lines used. However, variation in the composition of poor households with children has a different effect depending on the particular choice of equivalence scale. We found that, for households with more than the country's average number of children, poverty incidence is considerably higher than in the population as a whole.

Review: Breaking the Poverty Cycle The Human Basis for Sustainable Development

BREAKING THE POVERTY CYCLE The Human Basis for Sustainable Development Susan Pick and Jenna Sirkin New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 336pp. $49.95 cloth ISBN 978-0-19-538316-4Poverty is one of most loaded concepts in social sciences. Scholars have tried to define and measure it in many ways, most of which faU short of problem's multifaceted reality. Susan Pick and Jenna Sirkin's Breaking Poverty Cycle is a welcome addition to this debate. The book focuses on efforts of Mexican Institute of Family and Population Research, whose foundation in 1984 was inspired by Robert Hartman's theories on human values, Martin Fishbein's work on psychosocial development, and Amartya Sen's capability approach. In her preface, Pick offers a snapshot of problems that underlie persistent poverty in Mexico. In a series of interviews with women from one of Mexico City's poorest shantytowns, Pick discovered a lack of responsibility. The women thought that they did not and could not control circumstances of their lives, a syndrome that is widespread in Mexican society among both individuals and institutions.Drawing on Sen's capability approach to development, authors examine framework for enabling empowerment, which aims to promote inner responsibility by emphasizing personal and intrinsic empowerment. The framework challenges prevailing Mexican norms of fatalism, sexism, and paternalism by promoting an agency culture (44). It tries to encourage people to move beyond these social barriers to realize their fuU potential. Pick and Sirkin endeavour to show how enabling individuals to enhance their capabilities, and thus their potential, can have an effective and sustainable impact in combating poverty (xiii). Without this agentoriented view of development through expanding choice and freedoms, they argue, development is limited because individuals find it difficult to participate in societies in which they live (10).The framework laudably aims to reorient governmental and civU society programs toward encouraging personal and intrinsic empowerment, but this approach cannot work everywhere. It is unclear, for instance, how it might apply to authoritarian regimes or hyper-patriarchal societies. Pick and Sirkin argue that the ideal conditions for development occur when governments and institutions create opportunities rather than exercise their power only to establish constraints or facilitate assistance-based aid (168). But they pay less attention than they should to ways in which broader societal context can constrain opportunities for individuals to empower themselves. …

Contribution of Educational Factors in the Capacity to Overcome Adversity

The objective of this study was to identify factors that predict resilience and social mobility in persons living in extreme poverty in Mexico by analyzing an extensive set of school-related variables. A total of 913 adults were surveyed, with 65.2% women and an average age of 43.71 years. Significant correlations were found between the seven educational variables measured and resilience, and only one of them was correlated with social mobility. Regression analysis identifies achievement motivation and a reflexive learning style as predictors of resilience. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for this segment of the population.

Functional dependency and falls in elderly living in poverty in Mexico

To determine the prevalence of functional dependency (FD) on Mexican elderly living in extreme poverty conditions and to estimate the association between falls and FD. A survey was conducted with three stages for selection, stratified by type of locality (rural or urban) and nationally representative of the 2006 Oportunidades Program. The target population was composed of individuals 70 years of age and older who were beneficiaries of the Oportunidades Program. A total of 30.9% of the elderly presented FD. The gender stratified logistic regression model resulted in an odds ratio (OR) for women of 1.25 (I.C:1.13-1.39) for the association between the increase in the number of falls and FD and OR=1.12 (I.C:0.97-1.29) for men. Given the vulnerable conditions in which these older adults live, specific interventions need to be implemented to prevent falls in order to reduce the risk of functional dependency.

Telecommunications, Universal Service and Poverty in Mexico: a Public Policy Assessment (1990–2008)

This article analyzes the design and implementation of telecommunications service policies targeted at the poorest regions of Mexico (1990–2008). It begins by defining universal access and service policies, their economic and social rationale. Secondly, it discusses the scope of public policies on universal service provision designed by Mexican authorities to achieve the goal of universal access. Thirdly, the paper analyzes the distributive effects of this set of policies among thepoorest sectors of the population. The sources on which this research was based were two national surveys: the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (2008), and the Household Survey of the Access and Use of Information Technologies (2007). The additional information on regional economic development was based on the poverty indexes by the national population council and economic information given by Mexico’s Census Bureau. Additional use was made of the annual reports prepared by Ministry of Communications, statistics published by the Federal Telecommunications Commission and official documents prepared by the government agencies. Finally, a series of in-depth interviews was conducted with the former representatives of the Office of Rural Telephony. Finally, the article discusses, in the light of available evidence, possible explanations for the apparent failure of the universal service policy that was implemented to bring at least basic voice services to Mexico’s neediest.

Food security and poverty in Mexico: the impact of higher global food prices

During the period 2006–2008, general inflation around the world was pressed upwards by food inflation. An important reason for concern about the impact of high food prices arises from the fact that the poorest people spend approximately three quarters of their income on staple foods. In Mexico, meals are based on maize, with tortillas providing much of the caloric intake in rural areas. Prices of maize along with nearly every agricultural commodity sharply increased creating a global food price bubble. Using the Household Income and Expenditure National Survey (Encuesta Nacional de Ingresos y Gastos de los Hogares ENIGH) conducted in 2006 and 2008, it was found that higher prices for maize affected Mexican household living standards and food security both in urban and rural areas. There is an evident decay in household living standards from year 2006 to year 2008. In regional terms, urban areas are better off than rural areas. The poorest rural and urban households—net buyers of maize—were the most affected as their budget share on maize increased significantly. However, higher prices provided direct benefits to maize producers in rural areas at all levels of living. Another effect of higher maize prices was to redistribute income towards maize producer households in the middle and bottom of the rural income distribution.

Poverty in Mexico from an Ethnic Perspective

In Mexico, analysis of indigenous welfare is usually done using municipalities or localities, not households, as the point of reference, and this almost never in a way that allows for direct comparison with the non‐indigenous population. The 2008 edition of the National Household Survey of Income and Expenditure made possible, for the first time, the identification of the indigenous population. In this paper the official income poverty method is replicated for 2008, comparing the results for the indigenous and non‐indigenous populations. Additionally, inequality measures are estimated, comparing the income distribution of ethnic subgroups and their respective contributions with total inequality. Measurements using income data for indigenous and non‐indigenous populations show that members of the first group are poorer, and that poverty is stronger in the rural areas. Inequality measures show that there is, in general, less inequality in the indigenous population than in the non‐indigenous population, although this ranking is reversed for the distribution of income amongst the poor. A decomposition of the Gini coefficient shows that the indigenous population contributes proportionately less to total inequality than does the non‐indigenous population.

Telecommunications, Universal Service and Poverty in Mexico: a Public Policy Assessment (1990–2008)

This article analyzes the design and implementation of telecommunications service policies targeted at the poorest regions of Mexico (1990–2008). It begins by defining universal access and service policies, their economic and social rationale. Secondly, it discusses the scope of public policies on universal service provision designed by Mexican authorities to achieve the goal of universal access. Thirdly, the paper analyzes the distributive effects of this set of policies among the poorest sectors of the population. The sources on which this research was based were two national surveys: the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (2008), and the Household Survey of the Access and Use of Information Technologies (2007). The additional information on regional economic development was based on the poverty indexes by the national population council and economic information given by Mexico’s Census Bureau. Additional use was made of the annual reports prepared by Ministry of Communications, statistics published by the Federal Telecommunications Commission and official documents prepared by the government agencies. Finally, a series of in-depth interviews was conducted with the former representatives of the Office of Rural Telephony. Finally, the article discusses, in the light of available evidence, possible explanations for the apparent failure of the universal service policy that was implemented to bring at least basic voice services to Mexico’s neediest.

Alternative Pathways out of Rural Poverty in Mexico

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The Impact of Improved Maize Varieties on Poverty in Mexico: A Propensity Score-Matching Approach

This study examines the adoption of improved maize germplasm in Oaxaca and Chiapas in Mexico. It employs a propensity score-matching approach to analyze the impact of the adoption of improved maize varieties on household income and poverty reduction, using cross-sectional data of 325 farmers from the two regions. The findings reveal a robust positive and significant impact of improved maize variety adoption on farm household welfare measured by per capita expenditure and poverty reduction. Specifically, the empirical results suggest that adoption of improved maize varieties helped raise household per capita expenditure by an average of 136–173 Mexican pesos, thereby reducing their probability of falling below the poverty line by roughly 19–31%.