A longitudinal study of social lag: regional inequalities of growth in Mexico 2000 to 2015

摘要

Social lag is an indicator that measures social development in Mexico. The institutions in charge of measuring poverty require studies for measuring the extent to which social programs are efficient to combat poverty. In the past, SL has been measured using principal component analysis but this approach cannot be used for longitudinal studies. We present an alternative analysis for measuring social lag to overcome this difficulty. For this study, we use the census data for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015, which include 2446 municipalities. The results are summarized in three steps: (1) The number of SL indicators is reduced from 11 to 6 using confirmatory factor analysis techniques and the adjustment is found to be satisfactory; (2) mixture latent growth curve models were used to estimate growth trajectories of the municipalities from 2000 to 2015; (3) we used LISA Maps and the Moran index to identify regions of potential growth. In conclusion, we observed an unequal development of the municipalities in Mexico during 15?years of application of the social policy to reduce poverty and inequality. The present work contributes to providing evidence for elaborating public policies for targeting communities in need.