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This paper examines which factors influence the opportunities of completing upper-secondary education in Mexico, rather than dropping out of it. Drawing on Sen's capability approach and Bourdieu's sociocultural-reproduction perspective, two research hypotheses are formulated to provide possible explanations of persons' decisions to reach higher levels of schooling. These hypotheses are tested using data from Mexico's First Survey of School Dropouts, carried out in 2011. The results of this study indicate that the probabilities of completing upper-secondary education are associated with several factors: socioeconomic and demographic variables, the type of upper-secondary institution attended, human agency and educational experiences. The evidence presented in this study supports research hypotheses based on Sen's and Bourdieu's approaches. Regarding the hypothesis from the capability approach, the study data show that human agency is not only intrinsically valuable but also instrumentally important, for reaching higher educational levels. The findings of this study also bear out Bourdieu's argument that cultural and economic capital contribute to explain why students make progress in school, although, this paper challenges Bourdieu's view of the role of freedom of educational choice. Finally, some implications for educational policies are discussed in the last section of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses experimental panel data for Mexico from 1997 to 2000 in order to test assumptions on the impact of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program on child labor and school attendance, adding to the literature by emphasizing the differential impact on indigenous households. Using data from the CCT program, PROGRESA (later on known as OPORTUNIDADES), we investigate the interaction between child labor, education and indigenous households. While indigenous children had a greater probability of working before the intervention, this probability is reversed after treatment in the program. Indigenous monolingual children also had lower school attainment compared with Spanish-speaking or indigenous bilingual children. After the program, school attainment among indigenous children increased, reducing the gap. In terms of child labor, the larger reduction is in the group of bilingual children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 2000s decade represented a turning point in the increasing inequality trend that had been observed in Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century. This paper offers an analysis of the association between these shifts and short-, medium- and long-term factors. For our exploration we assemble a database on income distribution indicators systematically calculated directly from household surveys with emphasis on within-country consistency, methodology, definitions and coverage for the 1980–2013 years. This database allows observing clearly that the increases in inequality throughout the 1980s and 1990s decades have been counteracted by the improvements in the 2000s and the initial years of the 2010 decades. From our econometric exploration we find that (a) while there are short-term forces that are associated with underlying improvements in the distribution—including human capital accumulation and declines in the population dependency rate, (b) medium-term factors that could have been inequality-increasing in the past ameliorated their effect in the 2000s years—namely, the effect of the trade reforms of the 1980s which faded away toward the end of the past century and (c) there are two short-term forces that might have played an important progressive role during the 2000s years, but that could shift in the opposite direction in the near future—namely, the improvement in terms of trade and the declining returns to schooling. Thus, we conclude that the improvement in income distribution in the region could be only a temporary phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social norms can enable or limit development. The focus of this paper is on how psychosocial barriers limit functionings and capability development in Mexico. As far as individuals make such barriers their own, they go from being external to being internal; that is, they go beyond being social norms to becoming personal ones. As social norms become personal norms, they can become either barriers or opportunities for change. In fatalistic and tight societies such as Mexico, pressure to conform to “what will happen anyway” and to external norms and expectations is strong. This makes it easier to adopt such barriers than to expand one's functionings and capabilities and thus become an agent of change. In other words, it is more comfortable and practical to continue being asubjectrather than anagentof change. The consequence is the apparent and accepted state of affairs of neither oneself nor others enabling the development of personal agency. It is through experiential workshops based on facilitating cognitive, emotional and social skills, and knowledge in health, education, citizenship and productivity that freedoms can be expanded in such a way that psychosocial barriers are reduced and that individuals change behaviors so as to become agents of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that economic growth during the Porfiriato did not improve the well-being of the Mexican population. One explanation for such result is that the economic growth pattern was skewed and benefited more the northern states and less the southern ones. Following the estimation method of the Human Development Index, we calculate a Quasi-Human Development Index for the Mexican states during the period 1895–1910. Results show that at the start of the period (1895) the northern states were already the most developed. During the next 15 years this pattern was maintained and the dispersion in human development increased marginally. Finally, it is shown that the true losers of the Porfiriato were the states surrounding Mexico City and not the southern ones. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]