Overview
Mexico’s 1993 extension of compulsory schooling moved some cohorts across the lower-secondary threshold, with the largest gains among Indigenous-language and rural populations. This series traces reform-induced schooling through family formation, child survival, work, mobility, and children’s enrolment, while keeping the evidence local to compliers and bounded by access, quality, labour demand, and progression.
Learning outcomes
- Mexico’s reform raised schooling most where lower-secondary access was weakest, especially in Indigenous-language and rural populations.
- For reform compliers, added schooling reduced fertility and child mortality, showing effects beyond wages.
- Schooling shifted work away from agriculture and increased recent mobility, but lifetime-migration evidence is qualified.
- Parental schooling increased children’s secondary and upper-secondary enrolment, not yet proof of completed or income mobility.
Keywords
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PlansFAQ
What did Mexico’s 1993 schooling reform change?
It increased schooling near the eligibility cutoff and changed family, work, mobility, and children’s enrolment outcomes for reform compliers; it did not produce a universal effect.
Who benefited most from Mexico’s 1993 schooling reform?
People in Indigenous-language and smaller rural populations gained most in attainment, where lower baseline access left more room for the mandate to operate.
Did Mexico’s 1993 schooling reform increase wages?
The study provides no clean causal wage estimate because census earnings have high non-response; it instead finds changes in employment, sectors, and mobility.
Did the reform improve children’s education?
Yes, among observed co-residing children, reform-induced parental schooling increased secondary enrolment by about 3–4 points and upper-secondary enrolment by about 5–8 points, without proving completed or tertiary education.