Inequality and Growth in Mexico

The topic of inequality and growth in Mexico is a complex one, so I will try and limit my discussion to some of the central issues. The first point is that, although the economic crisis has brought equity issues to the fore, inequality and poverty in Latin America are really very old issues. One could say, very crudely, that the majority of the people of Latin America have lived under a situation of crisis for the last 30 or 40 years (and of course more) during the industrialisation period. We could refer to tables, figures and formulae to describe poverty and inequality, but a very simple description suffices: inequality in Latin America is not like inequality in developed countries; it is not the fact that there are poor, or even an important group of people in a bad economic situation; it is simply the fact that the majority of the population is very poor, and a small minority of people are very rich. In most Latin American countries, the problem has been how to incorporate that large group of poor people into the modern sector, The lack of success of economic policy has been precisely its inability to incorporate the poor, or even a substantial number of poor, into the benefits of economic growth.