In 2010, for the first time Mexico became the home of one hundred million inhabitants; according to official figures (INEGI), 112.6 millions of people live in national territory, of which 50.1% are women living in a territory conformed of 2,456 municipalities, where 2,294 (93,4%) have more than 50% of its population without access to social security.

One of the main priorities for Mexican social politics consists on overcoming the extreme poverty conditions that over 52 million Mexicans live in, whom in 2010 had at least one social insufficiency and whose income was not enough to satisfy their basic needs.

Members of economically disadvantaged families in this situation face:

• Greater chances of drop-outs
• Greater chances of diseases and malnutrition
• Lower possibilities of finding productive and well-paid jobs

These factors cause poverty to be transmitted from one generation to another.

Measuring Poverty

According to the Social Development Statute, the National Council for Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL) is the official institution in charge of determining the applicable methodology to measure poverty in our country, utilizing the multidimensional methodology.

The aforementioned methodology incorporates three aspects of life conditions: socioeconomic wellbeing, social rights and territorial context.

According to this methodology, someone is considered in poverty when its income is located under the well being line and presents insufficiencies in at least one of the following indicators:

• Average education gaps
• Access to health services
• Access to social security
• Household size and overall housing quality
• Access to basic household services
• Access to nutrition
• Current per capita income
• Social cohesion

People are considered to be in extreme poverty when they face three or more social deficiencies each and their full income is located under the well being parameter line.

Using the same parameters, one persona is vulnerable by its social deficiencies if they have at least one insufficiency, even though their income its located over the well being parameter line. Moreover, a person its considered vulnerable by its income if he or she doesn’t have social insufficiencies but their income its located under the well being parameter line.

This newly improved methodology allows the study of poverty in deep due to the fact that it’s not only measuring income but analyzes social insufficiencies from a social point of view, thus being able to timely monitor insufficiencies and socioeconomic well being of its population.

Última actualización:
Martes 2 de octubre de 2012 a las 4:43 pm
por Fernando Irala Burgos