More than half of Mexico's 82 million inhabitants live in poverty, with 18 million surviving in conditions of extreme misery, said a Mexican government report released this week in Chile.
The study also showed that 90 percent of Mexico's rural population suffers from malnutrition, 30 percent of Mexicans lack access to drinking water, and 4 million adults are illiterate.The report by the Mexican National Solidarity Program, or Pronasol, was presented at the final day of the Third Regional Conference on Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in the Chilean capital of Santiago.
Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari set up Pronasol in 1988 as a massive public works campaign to provide basic facilities like clean water, health centers, electricity and schools in the neediest parts of the country.
The report said the poorest areas of Mexico were rural and indigenous zones.
"Eighty percent of people involved in agricultural work live in poor homes, of whom half live in conditions of extreme poverty," the study said.
The report also said a fifth of Mexico City's 20 million residents live in substandard conditions and described a "backbone of poverty" stretching from the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca to the northern states of Durango and Chihuahua.
Other statistics in the study showed that 15.1 percent of Mexican children are malnourished, 7 percent of the total population cannot read or write, and that for every 2 million babies born 100,000 die in infancy.