I have just encountered this dated article from the Economist website discussing the results of the official census in Mexico. Starting with the obvious, it assessed Mexico's population at 122 million people and reveals not only interesting changes in the demographic profile but also about household property ownership. A curious fact in the author's mind is the revelation that 93% of Mexican households own televisions while 82% own refrigerators. I am unsure what the ideal is but the point being made by the author that television shows in poor quality seems not to find support from households. To my mind, the goods are probably not substitutes and ownership may be related to price or the size of each household.
No census would be complete without a journalist pulling out data to contrast the ownership of mobile versus terrestrial lines. It emerges that in Mexico, the ratio is 66% to 25% in favour of mobile telephones. I find this even more interesting because in many countries, mobile telephones tend to be perfect substitutes for landlines that have historically been unavailable to low income people. Illiteracy among the youth is at less than 2% while it climbs to as much as one third for those above 75 years shows that the country has done well with expanding the reach of social programmes. Kudos too to corporations and governments for the fact that electricity connections are almost at the universal level.
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