Color-based Economic Inequality in Mexico

• In Event: 2166 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 10: International Conceptions of Race

Abstract

Mexican national racial ideology rests upon the state-sponsored idea of mestizaje introduced during the post-revolutionary period. Although from the Mexican collective belief racism and racial-based inequalities appear to be far from the Mexicans´ daily-life practices and experiences, recent studies have shown substantial racial-based disparities in socioeconomic outcomes in Mexico. Using the 2017 National Survey on Discrimination (ENADIS) collected by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico (INEGI), I use ordinal logit and logistic regression to analyze the effect of skin color on a set of socioeconomic outcomes. Also, I examine disparities in overall socioeconomic status of indigenous and Afro-Mexican population considering key regional-level economic indicators to evaluate the influence of regional economic composition on this association. Consistent with previous research, I find that dark-skinned individuals are more likely to have lower socioeconomic outcomes and to live under the poverty line. However, compared to indigenous people, Afro-Mexicans have higher socioeconomic levels and are less likely to live under the poverty line. Finally, I find a substantial influence of regional-level economic indicators on the skin tone-SES association.

Author

• Antonio Paniagua Guzman, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee