Intragenerational Mobility in Mexico – The Evolution of the Occupational Opportunities 1960-2011

This study analyses the intragenerational mobility patterns in Mexico from 1960 until 2011. Using the Retrospective Demographic Survey (EDER) 2011, together with simple and multinomial logistic regressions, we estimated the determinants’ coefficients of the transition rates to higher, lower, and specific occupational strata. "Exports/GDP" and "Number of workers in the industrial public sector" variables were used to measure the degree of economic liberalization in the country and they showed that higher liberalization levels were associated with lower upward intragenerational mobility and with fewer access to the highest occupational strata. Indeed, after the economic restructuring in the 1980’s and the adoption of the neoliberal model, Mexican GDP grew poorly and the economy did not generate enough good quality jobs to foster upward social mobility. Thus, this association between liberalization and lessened upward mobility could be explained because, following the contraction of the public and private formal sector, the informal sector expanded and small-scale low-productivity businesses proliferated, which normally have limited income prospects, lack of access to the credit markets, and are not registered in the national social security programs. In this sense, this study provides additional evidence to support the hypothesis that economic liberalization in Mexico was harmful for occupational intragenerational upward mobility