Fewer christians, more cristianos in Mexico

The percentage of what Mexicans call cristianos, meaning everything from mainstream protestant christians to evangelicals and snake-charming pentecostals, is rising:

Twenty years ago,  the percentage of non-catholic christians was 4.9; this figure has now risen to 7.6 percent, according to INEGI figures,  apparently to the detriment of the catholics, who now make out 83.9 as compared to 89.7 in 1980. That is at least the gist in this interesting El Universal article on the subject: They are simply better at the recruitment of new followers (or invest more man power: There are now almost two non-catholic pastors for every catholic priest, or around 21,000 to 40,000, according to the interior ministry).

From what I gather, this development also applies to other countries in Latin America, particularly in Central America, though I have also anecdotal evidence from Argentina: When I was doing field work for my doctoral dissertation there, my ninety-something old neighbor in Barrio Norte (where I happened to live in an apartment that belonged to the Guevara family) for months insisted on 1) helping me clean my kitchen, although she had never set foot inside, and 2) talking about her evangelical church, which I occasionally endured as she would now and then keep my interest by throwing in a Che (whom she referred to as el asesino) anecdote.

10 years of PAN governments: INEGI figures offer damning indictments

The graph to the left, courtesy of Milenio,  shows the rise in informal employment in the first four years of the sexenio of Mexico's "President of Employment," as Felipe Calderón's 2006 campaign slogan went: In short, up from 11.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2006, to 12.85 million in the third quarter of 2010. The figures are from Mexico's national statistics institute, INEGI, although other organziations such as Centro de Estudios Económicos del Sector Privado (CEESP) argue that the real figure is far higher, given INEGI's restrictive definition of informal unemployment: According to CEESP, the real figure might be as high as 28 million, or upwards of 64 percent of Mexico's population.

On their face value, I find CEESP's numbers to appear too high, yet the main point from INEGI's figures is clear: Calderón has presided over a big jump in the number of people working in the informal sector, following a trend by President Vicente Fox (up 1.73 million) before him.

Regarding actual unemployment, in a La Jornada article along the same lines, calculations indicate that unemployment quadrupled in the 10 years of PAN rule: 2.6 million with no unemployment, and a further 5.4 million who, in INEGI's categorization, have "desisted" or basically given up on seeking formal work.
Those underemployed, according again to INEGI, rose from 3 million to 3.7 million.

The moniker "Presidente del Empleo" has long since turned into a joke. Following INEGI's statistics, it appears an increasingly cruel one.