Mexico has been able to reduce poverty starting from the second half of the 20th century in a historical trend, which was only interrupted during severe macroeconomic crises or shocks, such as those of 1983, 1994, and 2008. The variables with the highest explanatory power regarding the evolution of poverty are GDP per capita (in scenarios of macroeconomic stability and legal certainty) and formal employment, complemented by investment in education and health, and by redistributive social policies. These include both targeted policies applied since the 1970s (PIDER, COPLAMAR, Solidaridad, Progresa, Oportunidades, Prospera) and universal policies (generalized clientelist subsidies) at present. Despite these advances in terms of poverty, social mobility has stagnated: 7 out of 10 Mexicans born into the lowest income quintile remain in that situation throughout their lives. This is revealed by a major study recently published by the Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias (CEEY), which documents that, while there are unmistakable national features and trends regarding poverty, there are abysmal regional differences among federal entities. The structural persistence of poverty stands out in the southern states of the country: Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas—entities with the highest percentages of rural indigenous population.
The national historical overview is revealing, and it offers an objective framework to contrast the disappointing performance of the southern states. In Mexico, in 1950, nearly 90% of the population was in a situation of poverty, and two-thirds were in extreme poverty; correspondingly, almost 60% of the population was rural. By 1968, extreme poverty had already dropped to 24% and the rural population to 43%. In 1990, the rural population fell to 29% and extreme poverty to 22%. Total poverty was reduced between 1968 and 1990 from 70% to 53%. These achievements suffered a temporary setback as a aftermath of the 1994 crisis; however, between 1996 and 2006, the historical trend of poverty reduction resumed. During this period, extreme poverty fell to 14% and total poverty to 43%. A new setback was recorded around the 2008 global crisis; nevertheless, between 2014 and 2024, the historical process was re-established (with a brief interruption in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic). Extreme poverty was reduced to 9%, and total poverty to 35%. Meanwhile, inequality (measured by the Gini Coefficient) decreased from 0.52 in 1950 to 0.43 in 2024. In this context, the performance of the southern states of the country (Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas) contrasts with the federal entities with the lowest incidence of poverty, such as Mexico City (CDMX), Baja California, and Nuevo León, among several others. There is a strong process of divergence between the two groups of states. In 1980, the per capita income in the leading states was 2.5 times higher than in the lagging states. Currently, it is 4 times higher. That is to say, the relative backwardness in Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas is growing larger and larger. This situation of divergence is better documented if we look at the incidence of poverty and extreme poverty in each federal entity, using data provided by the CEEY. Between 1990 and 2024, this was considerably reduced in Baja California, Baja California Sur, Guanajuato, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Querétaro, and Aguascalientes. But in the southern states of the country, the highest rates of poverty incidence persisted into 2024. In Chiapas, there was 70% total poverty and 35% extreme poverty; Guerrero, 61% total poverty and 29% extreme poverty; and Oaxaca, 54% total poverty and 22% extreme poverty.
It is indispensable to identify and analyze the common denominators that explain the deep and perennial poverty in Mexico’s southern states as a logical premise to mitigate it in the future. Prominent factors include a very low-quality public education (dominated by the CNTE, Ayotzinapa, and other politicized and criminal rural teacher-training colleges), collective land ownership, very low female labor participation, an informal economy, endemic governance failures, a political class plagued by incompetence and corruption, legal uncertainty, and the absence of the rule of law. This translates into scarce investment and very low labor productivity, and therefore, very precarious incomes. All of this is intimately linked to unproductive institutions (formal and informal rules of the game and perverse incentives), a rent-seeking culture that is resistant to modernity, a collectivist ideology often adverse to private investment, conflict and subversion, the absence of the State (territorial control by narco-guerrilla groups, “community police,” and criminal insurgency), and cultural and ethnic heterogeneity. One could add a high dispersion of the peasant population in subsistence agricultural and livestock activities, deforestation, very limited urbanization, distance from the northern border, and a highly rugged geography that poses high infrastructure and transportation costs. The panorama appears to be of great complexity, perhaps insurmountable in the foreseeable future. It is.
Source: eleconomista
