Publication: Mexico - Income Generation and Social Protection for the Poor : Volume 4. A Study of Rural Poverty in Mexico
Loading...
Date
2005-08
ISSN
Published
2005-08
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This study is part of the second phase of a long-term programmatic work on poverty in Mexico, in three phases being carried out by the Bank at the request of the Government of Mexico. Reasons for a study on rural poverty, are because the size and intensity of the phenomenon, poverty, and inequality in rural Mexico are a matter of concern not only from the well-being of the poors' point of view, but also from that of the expansion of the internal market, inclusion of large sectors of the population traditionally excluded from the economic and social mainstream, and, the political integration and stability of the country. Poverty incidence in rural areas, in particular extreme poverty, is much higher than in urban ones. Although most of the country's moderate poor live in urban areas, most of the extreme poor are rural, even if the rural population is only one quarter of total. There are differences in sources of income between rural and urban poor. Also, rural environment poses specific constraints for provision of social infrastructure and services. Furthermore, institutions and culture tend to differ between rural and urban areas. The presence of indigenous groups is much larger in rural areas, whereas the production systems, the economic and other risks faced by rural poor and their coping strategies, usually largely differ from those of their urban peers. Mexico needs to move away from a fragmented social protection system, to a unified framework which nonetheless tailors different programs to different contexts in rural and urban areas. The study treats poverty as a multidimensional phenomenon intrinsically relative, with deep cultural aspects, and discusses the merits and limitations of quantifying poverty, in terms of measurable incomes and income lines. This report is organized as follows. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the evolution of poverty and inequality in the rural areas of Mexico in the decades between 1992 and 2002, while Chapter 3 looks more closely on what happened to rural incomes, employment, labor markets and the characteristics of rural labor force in the same period. Chapter 4 is devoted to examine the relation between poverty and the agricultural economy; Chapter 5 reviews the main agriculture, land and rural development policies and programs operating in Mexico, and examines them from the perspective of poverty friendliness; and, Chapter 6 starts with a theoretical discussion of the issues and challenges usually faced in the implementation of development policies and programs. Finally, Chapter 7 brings a more multidimensional and qualitative view, looking at how different types of rural poor can experience their poverty situation, including strategies to survive, manage risk and achieve petty accumulation, and, Chapter 8 concludes with a summary of policy options to reduce rural poverty in Mexico.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2005. Mexico - Income Generation and Social Protection for the Poor : Volume 4. A Study of Rural Poverty in Mexico. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/8286 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Turkey : Poverty and Coping after Crises, Volume 2. Background Papers(Washington, DC, 2003-07-28)Turkey experienced severe losses of life and infrastructure in 1999 caused by the August earthquake. The earthquake was followed by a period of economic and financial crisis, culminating in a major currency devaluation in February 2001. What has been the social impact of these crises? In order to answer that question, the World Bank and the Government of Japan co-financed a household survey during the summer of 2001, which consisted of surveying 4200 households on their consumption and income, and interviewing 120 respondents in depth for case studies. This study seeks to answer three main questions: how many are poor in Turkey in 2001; who are the poor and why are they poor?; and how do the poor cope with risk and poverty?. The major effect of the crises has been an increase in poverty in urban areas of Turkey from 1994 to 2001. Extreme poverty in all of Turkey has not changed, and remains at low levels, but inequality is also unchanged at quite high levels. A relatively large share (nearly one-fifth) of the urban population has consumption below a food standard, and qualitative evidence indicates that poverty has worsened in rural areas as well. The report concludes with the following policy recommendations:1) Macroeconomic management to resume broad-based growth, which should reverse the poverty trend since the vast majority of the newly poor are not extremely poor 2) Counter negative coping strategies of the poor by providing conditional cash transfers 3) Expand job opportunities for the newly poor through micro-projects and community development 4) Improve targeting and coverage of the extreme poor and outreach to them through institutional strengthening 5) Institute regular poverty monitoring through household surveys and the development of a poverty map.Publication The Social Impact of a WTO Agreement in Indonesia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-10)Indonesia experienced rapid growth and the expansion of the formal financial sector during the last quarter of the 20th century. Although this tendency was reversed by the shock of the financial crisis that spread throughout Asia in 1997 and 1998, macroeconomic stability has since then been restored, and poverty has been reduced to pre-crisis levels. Poverty reduction remains nevertheless a critical challenge for Indonesia with over 110 million people (53 percent of the population) living on less than $2 a day. The objective of this study is to help identify ways in which the Doha Development Agenda might contribute to further poverty reduction in Indonesia. To provide a good technical basis for answering this question, the authors use an approach that combines a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with a microsimulation model. This framework is designed to capture important channels through which macroeconomic shocks affect household incomes. It allows making recommendations on specific trade reform options as well as on complementary development policy reforms. The framework presented in this study generates detailed poverty outcomes of trade shocks. Given the magnitude of the shocks examined here and the structural features of the Indonesian economy, only the full liberalization scenario generates significant poverty changes. The authors examine their impact under alternative specifications of the functioning of labor markets. These alternative assumptions generate different results, all of which confirm that the impact of full liberalization on poverty would be beneficial, with wage and employment gains dominating the adverse food price changes that could hurt the poorest households. Two alternative tax replacement schemes are examined. While direct tax replacement appears to be more desirable in terms of efficiency gains and translates into higher poverty reduction, political and practical considerations could lead the Government of Indonesia to choose a replacement scheme through the adjustment of value-added tax rates across nonexempt sectors.Publication Poverty and Economic Growth in Egypt, 1995-2000(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-06)After a decade of slow economic growth Egypt's rate of growth recovered in the late 1990s, averaging more than five percent a year. But the effect of this growth on poverty patterns has not been systematically examined using consistent, comparable household datasets. In this paper, the authors use the rich set of unit-level data from the most recent Egyptian household surveys (1995-96 and 1999-2000) to assess changes in poverty and inequality between 1995 and 2000. Their analysis is based on household-specific poverty lines that account for the differences in regional prices, as well as differences in the consumption preferences and size and age composition of poor households. The results show that average household expenditures rose in the second half of the 1990s and the poverty rate fell from 20 percent to less than 17 percent. But, in addition to the ongoing divide in the urban-rural standard of living, a new geographical/regional divide emerged in the late 1990s. Poverty was found predominantly among less-educated individuals, particularly those working in agriculture and construction, and among seasonal and occasional workers. These groups could suffer the most from the slowing economic growth evident after 1999-2000.Publication Handbook on Poverty and Inequality(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009)The handbook on poverty and inequality provides tools to measure, describe, monitor, evaluate, and analyze poverty. It provides background materials for designing poverty reduction strategies. This book is intended for researchers and policy analysts involved in poverty research and policy making. The handbook began as a series of notes to support training courses on poverty analysis and gradually grew into a sixteen, chapter book. Now the Handbook consists of explanatory text with numerous examples, interspersed with multiple-choice questions (to ensure active learning) and combined with extensive practical exercises using stata statistical software. The handbook has been thoroughly tested. The World Bank Institute has used most of the chapters in training workshops in countries throughout the world, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malawi, Pakistan, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Thailand, as well as in distance courses with substantial numbers of participants from numerous countries in Asia (in 2002) and Africa (in 2003), and online asynchronous courses with more than 200 participants worldwide (in 2007 and 2008). The feedback from these courses has been very useful in helping us create a handbook that balances rigor with accessibility and practicality. The handbook has also been used in university courses related to poverty.Publication Yemen Poverty Assessment : Volume 3. Poverty Maps(Washington, DC, 2007-11)From what was historically known as 'Arabia Felix', a land of prosperity and happiness, Yemen has become the most impoverished among the Arab countries. The government of the united Yemen, formed in 1990, has launched so far three five-year economic reform plans with the goal of restoring Yemen's prosperity. Have these efforts succeeded? What policies are needed to further reduce poverty? The poverty assessment report aims to answer these questions. This report measures poverty in Yemen in 2005-06, and evaluates the change in poverty compared to 1998, the two years for which comparable household budget surveys are available. The period between the two survey years (1998 and 2005-06), more or less overlaps the first two five-year economic plans and captures the effect of the economic reform programs launched since 1995. In addition to measuring poverty, this report has three objectives: evaluating the role of growth and past reforms on poverty, identifying better ways to target the vulnerable poor through public action, and an assessment of the poverty monitoring system. By examining the effect of the key policies on poverty, such as the petroleum price reform and the government's social protection mechanisms between 1998 and 2005-06, the study aims to equip policy makers and development partners with the knowledge needed to improve the effectiveness of their efforts to reduce poverty in Yemen.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Implementation Know-how Briefs to Support Countries to Prioritize, Connect and Scale for a Digital-in-Health Future(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-08-18)Technology and data are integral to daily life. As health systems face increasing demands to deliver new, more, better, and seamless services affordable to all people, data and technology are essential. With the potential and perils of innovations like artificial intelligence the future of health care is expected to be technology-embedded and data-linked. This shift involves expanding the focus from digitization of health data to integrating digital and health as one: Digital-in-Health. The World Bank’s report, Digital-in-Health: Unlocking the Value for Everyone, calls for a new digital-in-health approach where digital technology and data are infused into every aspect of health systems management and health service delivery for better health outcomes. The report proposes ten recommendations across three priority areas for governments to invest in: prioritize, connect and scale. The Implementation Know-How Briefs serve as practical guides for countries as they implement the ten recommendations. Every Implementation Know-How Brief provides practical information to start planning and implementing how to implement the recommendations. It also contains key terminologies for those not familiar with a particular topic, provides key questions to ask, and a general orientation as to typical issues in these sectors. Topics covered are: 1.) Digital health assessments; 2.) Telemedicine and virtual health care; 3.) Private sector involvement in digital health; 4.) Interoperability in health sector; 5.) Data governance for health data; 6.) Cybersecurity for health sector; 7.) Digital health records; 8.) Determining value of digital technology in health; 9.) Certification and regulatory sandboxes for digital technologies in health; 10.) Workflow mapping for digital technology (re)design in health systems.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Services Unbound(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-09)Services are a new force for innovation, trade, and growth in East Asia and Pacific. The dramatic diffusion of digital technologies and partial policy reforms in services--from finance, communication, and transport to retail, health, and education--is transforming these economies. The result is higher productivity and changing jobs in the services sector, as well as in the manufacturing sectors that use these services. A region that has thrived through openness to trade and investment in manufacturing still maintains innovation-inhibiting barriers to entry and competition in key services sectors. 'Services Unbound: Digital Technologies and Policy Reform in East Asia and Pacific' makes the case for deeper domestic reforms and greater international cooperation to unleash a virtuous cycle of increased economic opportunity and enhanced human capacity that would power development in the region.Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.