2010 Population census: demographic changes in Mexico

Published in Plaza de Armas (www.plazadearmas.com.mx), March 28^th 2011.

In November last year, INEGI published the preliminary results of the 2010 Population and Housing Census. In the beginning of this month, they published the definitive results, and we have known a huge amount of information about our population, educational, economic and housing profiles.

From this huge amount of data, that will need a lot of study and analysis, I extracted some pieces that help us to identify interesting social trends and groups with specific needs.

We are more than 112 million Mexicans (11^th place in the world). The population growth kept its decreasing rate that started in 1980. This trend has already changed our population pyramid profile, since we are reducing the base and slightly widening the top:

	1990 Census	2010 Census
0-14 years population	38.6%	29.3%
More than 65 years population	4.2%	6.3%

However, Mexico is still a country of young people. Half of the population has 26 years or less, and we are living what is known as the “demographic bonus”; it means the period in which the change in the population pyramid creates the biggest working force (people from 14 to 64 years). This period is supposed to be a historic opportunity in terms of productivity, but the slow rate of employment recovery we are having is turning it into an important social risk due to the amount of young people without labor opportunities.

Half of our population concentrates in 7 States out of 32: Mexico, Distrito Federal, Veracruz, Jalisco, Puebla, Guanajuato and Chiapas. In the country, one of five Mexicans live in a State different to the one they were born, with such different behaviors as Quintana Roo (the state where Cancun is), where half of its inhabitants was born in other states, or Chiapas, where more than 96% of its inhabitants was born there.

This result is explained by our internal migratory movements. In the last 5 years, the 5 states that have proportionally received more people from other states are: Baja California Sur, Quintana Roo evidently, Colima, Nayarit and Querétaro. In the opposite situation is Distrito Federal (Mexico City), since it is the state from which more Mexicans emigrate, mainly to neighbor states, and within them, especially to the state of Mexico.

This produces very different population dynamics in our states. On one side, the states that have the biggest growth rate in the last 10 years are Baja California Sur, Quintana Roo and Querétaro. This implies big challenges in the creation of housing, infrastructure and employment; but it also creates opportunities in the growth of local markets for goods and services.

In the opposite situation we have Distrito Federal, Guerrero, Sinaloa, Zacatecas and Michoacán, since they have the slowest growth rate in the same period. This is a consequence of different structural situations in infrastructure, quality of life and economic perspectives, and their challenge is to break these dynamics that are not healthy in the long term.

In 20 years, the population in urban zones (more than 100,000 inhabitants) went from 44.4% to 47.8%. This is consistent with the world dynamic, where 51% of the population lives in urban environments. This has advantages considering the cost for developing the required infrastructure, but represents huge challenges regarding quality of life.

In a different perspective, another group that had an intensive growth in the last 10 years is the population born in another country, which duplicated and is currently close to one million inhabitants. This shows important changes in economic, social and cultural dynamics, and represents a social group that is growing at an unprecedented pace.

Another social group important to watch and to pay attention to is the handicapped population. It is true that in recent years we have gained a lot of consciousness and sensitivity about their conditions and needs, but we still have a lot of work to do referring to respect and equality. There are 5.8 million people in the country, where the most common disability is for moving or walking (58%), followed by seeing (27%) and hearing (12%). Obviously, each group has different needs.

Finally, there are 28.6 million homes in the country. Two important changes are the increase of homes with computers (went from 9.3% to 29.4% in the last 10 years), and in the ownership of cars (from 32.5% to 44.2%). This shows needs that people will keep satisfying and the creation of new opportunities.

Censuses definitely have valuable information, but it is our responsibility to analyze them, not only as a “still frame”, but as a movie when we compare different years. This will help us to understand the different dynamics and therefore identify risks and opportunities for business development.

Data for Querétaro
Variable	Value
Population	1,830,000 people (2.6% annual growth in 10 years)
Population born in other state or country	23.8%
Population that lived in another state 5 years ago	5.9%
Handicapped population	67,000 people
Homes	450,000 (4.2% annual growth in 10 years)
Homes with Computers	34% (above national average)

The economic performance of each State in Mexico

I published this article on Plaza de Armas, newspaper from Queretaro, February 14th, 2011 (http://www.plazadearmas.com.mx/)

To complete this analysis about the ups and downs of Mexico’s economic fall and recovery, let’s analyze from the perspective of each State performance.

I will make this analysis with data for 2009, since GDP’s data for 2010 by State is still unavailable. However, this figures let us understand the impact of the recent financial crisis.

The economic crisis was of different magnitude for each State, depending on the composition of their economic sectors.

We can see that the northern border States, that depend heavily on commerce and manufacturing, had falls from 9% to 12%. On the other hand, most of the States on the Pacific coast had milder falls (between 2% and 5%), mainly because they have a strong primary sector (agriculture, cattle, fishing, forestry) that kept its level or improved it during 2009.

Only 4 States had a growth during 2009, and all of them driven by different reasons: Baja California Sur was pushed by an impressive growth in the construction sector, Tabasco by oil activities, Zacatecas by commerce and the primary sector, and Morelos, that kept almost the same economic level than 2008.

In the Central region, the States had falls of different magnitude. Meanwhile Puebla had a fall of almost 9% (caused mainly by the machinery and equipment sector, and commerce), Guanajuato’s fall was of 4% (driven by the machinery and equipment sector, and the foods, beverages and tobacco sector).

Referring to Querétaro, during the period 2003-2008 it was the State with the second biggest growth in the country (35.8%), driven by the growth in three main sectors: commerce sector, transportation, couriers and storage services, and construction. However, these same sectors fell from 8% to 15% during 2009, resulting in the tenth biggest fall of the States, and its GDP went back to 2007 levels.

Practically, every economic sector had growth during 2010; therefore, all the States that had a fall below 5% in 2009 may have already recovered during 2010, and if the trends remain, the rest of the States will do it during 2011 and 2012.

This detailed understanding of the country’s economic outlook is useful to have a better evaluation of business opportunities. If you make evaluations based only in perceptions, or with general data, you can outlook opportunities or have unrealistic expectations.