education, while this percentage reaches more than
10 percent among children.
The reproduction of educational advantage and
disadvantage is pronounced in Mexico, in spite of the
massive educational expansion over the last decades.
Access to higher levels of education —
upper-second-ary and, even more, college — is very strongly stratified by social origins. A full 74 percent of men and
57 percent of women with college-educated parents
reach college. In contrast, more than one-fifth of children with parents with no education attained no education themselves, and a meager 3 percent of them
reached college. Furthermore, Mexicans whose parents did not attend school have about an 80 percent
chance of attaining only minimal levels of schooling—primary education or less.
These figures, though, describe the mobility
chances of Mexicans who are currently 29 to 64 years
old. In recent years there’s been progress that favors
those younger than 29. The proportion of Mexicans
with no schooling has dropped to about 4 percent
among 25 to 29 years old and to 3 percent among
15 to 19 years old. Furthermore, a gender gap that
existed before has all but closed. This is encouraging news. The effect of these developments will only
be seen, however, as this new generation joins the
labor market and translates its human capital into
economic returns.
Now the Challenge
(and Unexpected
Opportunity) of the Crisis
How will the current economic crisis affect intergenerational mobility in Mexico? Research in developing countries has demonstrated that economic
downturns undermine the capacity of families to
invest in education, particularly the poorest families, thus reinforcing the transmission of poverty
and vulnerability.
The net outcome of the current economic crisis,
however, is not clear. Economic theory distinguishes
two offsetting effects of an economic downturn on
educational investments. On the one hand, econom-
cct
ProgrAms
iN Peru
by Carlos
Díaz Rueda
Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have
become the poverty
alleviation program de
moda across the region.
What started in Mexico in 1997 with the
Progresa/Oportunidades
program came to Peru in
2005 as JUN TOS (
Together), under then-President Alejandro Toledo.
At the time, his government’s low popularity, along with concerns
that the program would
be politicized, triggered
widespread skepticism
about JUNTOS. But the
project’s early success
gained it wider popular support. In 2006,
newly elected President
Alan García put his support behind JUNTOS in a
definitive way: the budget was tripled from $37.5
million to $94.3 million, and coverage was
increased by an additional 120,000 families.
Focusing on the poorest households in rural
communities, JUNTOS
has continued to expand.
By January 2009, the program covered 420,574
households affecting a
total of 2,299,647 beneficiaries in 14 of Peru’s
poorest regions: Amazonas, Ancash, Apurimac,
Ayacucho, Cajamar-ca, Cuzco, Huancaveli-ca, Huanuco, Junín, La
Libertad, Loreto, Pasco,
Piura, and Puno. Target households, including those with pregnant
women and with children under the age of 14,
receive a fixed monthly cash transfer of 100
ic turmoil results in declining family income and
forces families to send secondary workers—wives and
school-age children—to the labor market. The chance
of this negative income effect occurring is even greater if—as is the case in Mexico and Latin America—
credit markets are imperfect, preventing families
from borrowing against future returns.
The other effect, though, provides an unusual
window of opportunity. If jobs are less available
and wages decline, the opportunity cost of staying in school declines too—simply because there
is no “better alternative.” As a result, students tend
