Incorporating Public Insecurity Indicators: A New Approach to Measuring Social Welfare in Mexico

Abstract

This study presents evidence on the utility of including public insecurity indicators when assessing Social Welfare in Mexico. It estimates two multidimensional indices of social welfare using the DP2 method. The two measures (DP2a index and DP2b index) contain the following categories: (1) material welfare, (2) economic well-being, (3) subjective well-being, and (4) social capital. For the second, we included an additional category, (5) public insecurity, and examined its effect on social welfare. The results show that inclusion of indicators of insecurity, crime victimization, and homicides had a negative effect on social welfare within states. Specifically, trust in people, network membership, satisfaction with life, and happiness where reduced. Our results suggest that public insecurity should be a key consideration in the understanding of social welfare in Mexico.

The Structure of Social Cohesion: An Analysis of Its Levels and Dimensions in Mexico City1

“…To CONAPO [Consejo Nacional de Población in Spanish] (2016), Mexico City is one of the four states along with Baja California, Coahuila, and Nuevo León that also have a very low marginalization rate and low levels of social exclusion. In addition, the level of social welfare is high, occupying a ninth place at the national level (Martínez‐Martínez et al 2018b). Despite having positive indicators in social deprivations, poverty, and marginalization, some studies have exposed that the levels of social development at the municipal level and by neighborhood are very heterogeneous, as well as there is even a wide inequality between blocks that are in the same neighborhood (EVALUA 2010, 2015).…”

Percepción De La Inseguridad Y Bienestar Subjetivo en México. Una Aproximación Cualitativa

“…El estudio fue de carácter cualitativo y se utilizó como principal herramienta la entrevista semiestructurada, en la cual se preguntaron los datos demográficos de la persona entrevistada, cuatro subcategorías sobre inseguridad (percepción de la inseguridad, víctimas del delito, prevención del delito, tipo de delitos en la colonia o localidad) y una sobre bienestar subjetivo con tres subcategorías (bienestar subjetivo positivo, negativo y felicidad); las categorías y subcategorías de inseguridad y bienestar subjetivo utilizadas, tienen como base diversas investigaciones y encuestas (Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática, 2018; Martínez-Martínez et al, 2018;Hanslmaier, 2013;Aldana, 2018). Para este documento se utilizaron 2 subcategorias, las cuales, de acuerdo a los autores antes citados, se definen como: Percepción de la inseguridad: es el miedo que tiene una persona ante el riesgo de ser víctima de un delito.…”

Scaling the Security Staircase

“…Similarly, the term “national security” has moved from a unidimensional international relations construct focused predominantly on military issues to become more multifarious, both through populist rhetoric and the development of broader dimensions of national security (Martinez‐Martinez, Vazquez‐Rodriguez, Lombe, & Gaitan‐Rossi, 2018). Contributions to concerns about national security have included contemporary issues such as the construction of immigration as a threat (Innes, 2010) and the rise of online radicalization in the 21st century, the latter of which highlights the interrelatedness of the various security dimensions (Conversi, 2012; Jakobi & Wolf, 2013).…”