Patricio Solís

Receipt of Assistance and Extended Family Residence among Elderly Men in Mexico

This article focuses on help received by a nationally-representative sample of 2,376 Mexican men age 60+ in 1994. In the month before the interview, about one-half of the men received in-kind or domestic assistance, two-fifths received financial assistance, and about one-fourth received physical assistance. This was so even as almost half the men still worked, and over half (57%) had no discernable functional limitation. Using logistic regression, the study found support for the common assumption that living arrangements are an important predictor of assistance. Other factors are important too however. In fact, many elders received help from non-coresiding relatives. Beside financial remittances, help from non-coresiding relatives included in-kind, domestic, and physical assistance. Research on Mexico suggests that we need to revisit notions of a modified extended family in which non-coresidential ties can be important. Surveys need questions about frequency of contact and geographic distance between elderly people and their kin.

Demographic models of birth outcomes and infant mortality: An alternative measurement approach

Most demographic studies use 2,500 grams of birth weight and 37 weeks of gestation as cutpoints for evaluating the effects of adverse birth outcomes on infant mortality. We propose an alternative strategy, which relies on continuous measures of birth outcomes, identifies an optimal combination of birth weight and gestational age for infant survival, and estimates the effects of adverse birth outcomes in terms of their departure from this “optimal point.” We illustrate the advantages of this approach by estimating a logistic model using data from the 1989–1991 NCHS linked birth/infant death files. Finally, we discuss future applications and methodological issues to be resolved in subsequent research.

Classes sociales, pauvreté et inégalités dans les années de l'alternance présidentielle

Malgre l’institutionnalisation croissante des politiques sociales sous la presidence du PAN (2000-2012), la pauvrete a conserve ses niveaux anterieurs et les inegalites de revenus ne se sont reduites que marginalement. Comprendre ces contradictions revient a identifier les composantes structurelles de la pauvrete et des inegalites qui n’ont pu etre modifiees pendant cette periode. Nous analyserons plus particulierement l’une de ces composantes, la structure de classes, au sens d’un ensemble de positions hierarchiques occupees au sein du marche du travail. Or cette structure est restee inchangee tout au long de l’alternance, demontrant qu’il existait des freins puissants a la mobilite ascendante. En meme temps, si les inegalites se sont effectivement reduites entre 2000 et 2006, debouchant sur une legere amelioration du niveau de vie des classes laborieuses et rurales, la chute des inegalites qui suivit, entre 2006 et 2012, a ete contrebalancee par un appauvrissement des classes moyennes et un manque de perspectives d’amelioration pour les classes laborieuses et rurales. Pour autant on ne saurait interpreter ces phenomenes comme un signe de progres social.