According to figures from the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval), between 2018 and 2022, the percentage of the population in a situation of multidimensional poverty at the national level went from 41.9% to 36.3%, which represented a decrease from 51.9 to 46.8 million people who suffer from this scourge nationwide.
According to these figures, in the last two years a total of 5.2 million people came out of poverty in the country; the data would be to celebrate if they are taken like this, without forgetting that the effect of social programs surely has a lot to do with it, which, in any case, will always be insufficient and, if they remain in force and without economic shocks, it would take many decades to end with poverty.
In this sense, social programs did alleviate poverty, although it is nothing new since the same effect was registered in other six-year terms in which these schemes were implemented or increased support for the poorest.
However, poverty has many nuances and, as the Coneval statement says, many dimensions: in reality, the increase in social support covers a part of the spectrum of poverty and this phenomenon is recorded due to the increase in income, but it is the part of deficiencies is the one that usually reflects with greater breadth and certainty the true situation of those who have less.
Social deprivation in economics is defined as the lack of resources to enjoy some other satisfiers such as: food, educational gap, access to health services, access to social security, quality and housing spaces and/or basic housing services, among others.
According to Coneval figures, social deficiencies are the great lag in the fight against poverty. In this sense, it is imperative to reduce them since, otherwise, the risk that those millions who left will return to poverty in the coming years, according to CONEVAL, is very high.
Subject to breaking down the figures, a piece of information provided by Coneval himself says it all, in the heading called “Vulnerable population due to social deprivations”, between 2018 and 2022 the percentage of the population went from 26.2 to 29.4 percent, that is, an increase of 5.2 million people.
Although some items stand out for their improvement, it is surely a consequence of the increase in household income, which covers some deficiencies, but in fact this indicator is still very high.
For example, the Coneval report indicates that the population with at least one social deprivation decreased from 68.3 percent in 2018 to 65.7 percent in 2022. However, the population with at least three social deprivations went from 20.2 percent in 2018 to 24.9 percent two years later.
A very worrying item is the educational gap, as long as Mexican society does not improve its levels of education it will be difficult to completely abate underdevelopment; In this sense, Coneval points out that between 2018 and 2022 the educational gap went from 19.0 to 19.4 percent of the population.
Other very relevant indicators also show a marked deterioration, the access to health services is of capital importance, since health is the only and most valuable asset of any human being, essential if they are in a situation of poverty.
Thus, according to Coneval’s figures, the lack of access to health services went from 16.2 percent in 2018 to 39.1 percent in 2022, which meant an increase of 30.3 million people with this deficiency during the present administration, reflecting the conditions in which the health sector finds itself in terms of medical care and drug shortages, also evidenced by the pandemic.
It must also be recognized that other indicators of deprivation have improved, but surely derived from the increase in personal and family spending that promoted social policy, although its growth rates are low.
For example, the lack of access to social security dropped from 53.5 to 50.2 percent, while the lack of quality and housing spaces decreased from 11.0 to 9.1 and the lack of access to nutritious and quality food fell from 22.2 to 18.2 percent.
Thus, social programs fulfilled a very important task by reducing the number of poor people in Mexico, which increased with the pandemic. However, poverty has many nuances and one of the most important is that of deficiencies, they are like the chains that keep people tied to poverty. In this area, that of deficiencies, few or no advances were observed, which tells us that the fight against poverty must be constant and with permanent results to fulfill the generational task of ending this evil one day.
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