Publication: Social Networks among Indigenous Peoples in Mexico
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Date
2010
ISSN
0023-8791
Published
2010
Author(s)
Patrinos, H. A.
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Abstract
We examine the extent to which social networks among indigenous peoples in Mexico have a significant effect on a variety of human capital investment and economic activities, such as school attendance and work among teenage boys and girls, and migration, welfare participation, employment status, occupation, and sector of employment among adult males and females. Using data from the 10 percent population sample of the 2000 Population and Housing Census of Mexico and the empirical strategy that Bertrand, Luttmer, and Mullainathan (2000) propose, which allows us to take into account the role of municipality and language group fixed effects, we confirm empirically that social network effects play an important role in the economic decisions of indigenous people, especially in rural areas. Our analysis also provides evidence that better access to basic services such as water and electricity increases the size and strength of network effects in rural areas.
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Publication Social Networks among Indigenous Peoples in Mexico(2009-06-01)This paper examines the extent to which social networks among indigenous peoples have a significant effect on a variety of human capital investment and economic activities, such as school attendance and work among teenage boys and girls, and migration, welfare participation, employment status, occupation and sector of employment among adult males and females. The analysis uses data from the 10 percent population sample of the 2000 Population and Housing Census of Mexico and an empirical strategy that allows taking into account the role of municipality and language group fixed effects. The authors confirm empirically that social network effects play an important role in the economic decisions of indigenous people, especially in rural areas. The analysis also provides evidence that better access to basic services, such as water and electricity, increases the size and strength of network effects in rural areas.Publication Indigenous Peoples in Latin America : Economic Opportunities and Social Networks(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-05)Despite significant changes in poverty overall in Latin America, the proportion of indigenous peoples living in poverty did not change much from the early 1990s to the present. While earlier work focused on human development, much less has been done on the distribution and returns to income-generating assets and the effect these have on income generation strategies. The authors show that low income and low assets are mutually reinforcing. For instance, low education levels translate into low income, resulting in poor health and reduced schooling for future generations. Social networks affect the economic opportunities of individuals through two important channels-information and norms. However, the analysis shows that the networks available to indigenous peoples do not facilitate employment in nontraditional sectors.Publication Economic Opportunities for Indigenous Peoples in Latin America : Conference Edition(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2007)Indigenous peoples make up less than 5 percent of the world's population, yet comprise 15 percent of the world's poor. The indigenous population of Latin America is estimated at 28 million. Despite significant changes in poverty overall, the proportion of indigenous peoples in the region living in poverty - at almost 80 percent - did not change much from the early 1990s to the early 2000s. Economic Opportunities for Indigenous Peoples in Latin America moves beyond earlier work which focused primarily on human development, and looks at the distribution and returns to income generating assets - physical and human capital, public assets and social capital - and the affect these have on income generation strategies. Low income and low assets are mutually reinforcing. Low education levels translate into low income, resulting in poor health and reduced schooling of future generations. Low assets not only reduce the ability to generate income, they also hinder the capacity to insure against shocks, thus increasing vulnerability. This is especially true when coupled with missing credit and insurance markets. There are significant complementarities across assets, which imply that the returns to one asset depend on access to another. These synergies between assets accumulate the disadvantages of the asset-poor in terms of returns to income-generating activities. They also dictate policies that facilitate access not only to one key productive asset, such as land, but also to complementary assets, such as training and infrastructure, which affect the returns to land.Publication Exploring the Differential Impact of Public Interventions on Indigenous People(Taylor and Francis, 2015-09-22)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.Publication Quality of Schooling and Quality of Schools for Indigenous Students in Guatemala, Mexico and Peru(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-08)A substantial gap in test scores exists between indigenous and non-indigenous students in Latin America. Using test score data for 3rd and 4th year primary school pupils in Guatemala and Peru, and 5th grade pupils in Mexico, the authors assess the magnitude of the indigenous and non-indigenous test score gap and identify the main family and school inputs contributing to the gap. A decomposition of the gap into its constituent components suggests that the proportion that is explained by family and school characteristics is between 41 and 75 percent of the overall test-score gap. Furthermore, family variables contribute more than school variables to the overall explained component.
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