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  • Title: Mexico's demographic trends and employment prospects.
    Author: O'connor S, Arriaga EE.
    Journal: Int Demogr; 1984 May; 3(5):3, 10-1. PubMed ID: 12313037.
    Abstract:
    Mexico's population growth rate declined from about 3% annually in 1970 to about 2.6% in 1982, but the country's growth earlier in the century produces an unprecedented increase in the size of its labor force and in the demand for jobs. Because of continued high fertility and simultaneous decline in mortality, Mexico experienced rapid rates of population growth from 1960-75. According to recent population projections from the US Census Bureau, the working age population in general will grow faster than the total population. The growth rate of the total population was 2.8% from 1970-80, but the growth rate for the population in working ages will increase to 3.8% during the 1980-85 period, as the children born during periods of high fertility become working age adults. After 1985 the growth rate of the population aged 15-64 will start to decline, yet the working age population during the last decade of the 20th century will continue to grow at the pace that the total population grew during 1970-80. And the number of persons that will be added to the 15-64 age group will continuously increase from now to the year 2010. Accompanying the growth of the working age population, there will likely be an increase in educational attainment and a decline in fertility. Thus, the demand for jobs will grow at an astonishingly high rate, as a larger proportion of women and a better educated population want to enter the labor force. A problem in predicting the size of the labor force is predicting the percent of persons at each age who will be working or looking for work. From 1980-85, the growth rate will be about 4% a year, and it will decline to about 3.1% a year during the last 5 years of the century. A complicating factor is the composition of the labor force. In Mexico, rapid urbanization and a large reduction in the proportion of the labor force in agriculture has begun. From 1980-2000 the urban population is expected to grow at a rate of 3.1% a year, while the rural population will grow at an annual rate of 0.7%, implying that most of the demand for new jobs will be in urban areas in the nonagricultural sector. The question is whether the Mexican economy can create jobs rapidly in the nonagricultural sector and whether the modern sector of the economy can create enough jobs to meet the expected demand.
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