Mexico: Encyclopedia II - Mexico

With an estimated 2005 population of about 106.5 million, Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.

Mexico is ethnically and culturally diverse. According to the CIA World Factbook, about 60% of the population is mestizo (mixed Amerindian and white), another 30% is Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian. Some 9% is white (of European descent), the majority being from Spain, though there also large numbers of people of German, Italian, French, Portuguese, British, Irish, Russian (Molokans), Dutch, Greek, and Scandinavian (particularly in Nueva Escandinavia, Chihuahua) ancestry. The remaining 1% includes Afro-Mexicans, Asians, Jews, and Middle Easterners. Mexico is also home for many other Latin American groups: mostly Argentines, but also Brazilians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, Colombians and Venezuelans. The PRI governments in power for most of the 20th century had a policy of granting asylum to fellow Latin Americans fleeing political persecution in their home countries. Mexico has a sizeable population of Asians numbering around 200,000, many of them Chinese and Japanese, the majority of which reside in Mexicali, Baja California. There are also a few Lebanese and Arabs. In Mexico the biggest foreign colonies are:

According to the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas ("The National Council for the Development of Indigenous People") the Amerindian population in Mexico is approximately 12.7 million. However, the Mexican government does not collect racial information during censuses. In 2004, the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatic had estimated this figure to be 12,089,094 (~11.4% of Mexico's population) of indigenous people of which, more than one million do not speak Spanish and almost five million are bilingual (INEGI, 2004).

Judging by the proportion of people speaking indigenous languages, the states with the highest proportion of indigenous people are Yucatán (37.3%), Oaxaca (37.1%), Chiapas (24.6%) and Quintana Roo (23%). The states of Aguascalientes (0.2%), Coahuila (0.2%), Zacatecas (0.2%) and Nuevo León (0.5%) have the lowest proportion of speakers of indigenous languages ([INEGI, 2004]).

Mexico is the country where the greatest number of U.S citizens live outside the United States. This may be due to the growing economic and business interdependence of the two countries under NAFTA, and also that Mexico is considered an excellent choice for retirees. A clear example of the latter phenomenon is provided by San Miguel de Allende and many towns along the Baja California peninsula and around Guadalajara, Jalisco. The official figures for foreign-born citizens in Mexico are 493,000 (since 2004), with a majority (86.9%) of these born in the United States (with the exception of Chiapas, where the majority of immigrants are from Central America). The five states with more immigrants are Baja California (12.1% of total immigrants), Federal District (11.4%), Jalisco (9.9%), Chihuahua (9%) and Tamaulipas (7.3%). More than 54.6% of the immigrant population are 15 years old or younger, while 9% are 50 or older. 4.2% of male immigrants and 3.8% of female immigrants did not have formal education while 20.2% of male immigrants and 17.7% of female immigrants had a college degree [INEGI, 2004.

Life expectancy in Mexico increased from 34.7 for men and 33 years for women in 1930 to 72.1 for men and 77.1 years for women in 2002. The states with the highest life expectancy are Baja California (75.9 years) and Nuevo Leon (75.6 years). The Federal District has a life expectancy of the same level as Baja California. The lowest levels are found in Chiapas (72.9), Oaxaca (73.2) and Guerrero (73.2 years), although the first two have had the highest increase (19.9 and 22.3% respectively).

The mortality rate in 1970 was 9.7/1000 people and by 2001 the rate had dropped to 4.9/1000 for men and 3.8/1000 for women. The most common reasons for death in 2001 were heart problems (14.6% for men 17.6% for women) and Cancer (11% for men and 15.8% for women).