ABSTRACT

There is a consensus among scholars that the serious economic problems that Latin American countries were suffering during the 1980s were the precipitating factor of the economic reforms implemented in these countries, not the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank adjustment policy package. Despite the presence of several methodological difficulties in determining whether a deterioration in the living conditions of the population was due to policy reform, there is a growing concern among scholars on whether the economic reforms proposed by the IMF/World Bank are conducive to economic growth. Concerning poverty reduction in Mexico, people have seen that there is no consensus among scholars about the changes in the level of poverty during the years that followed the 1982 economic crisis. At the national level, there is no available data on the labour force for the 1980s. In contrast, young male workers had a worse position at work compared with their fathers and sisters, despite their much higher level of education.