Why Mexico?

The United Mexican States known as Mexico (Estados Unidos Mexicanos) is a country located in North America, bordered at the north by the United States, and at the south by Guatemala and Belize, in Central America. It is the northernmost and westernmost country in Latin America, and also the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.

As the only Latin American country member of the OECD since 1994, Mexico is firmly established as an upper middle-income country. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time since the 1910 Mexican Revolution that the opposition defeated the PRI and Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) was sworn in as President on 1 December 2000.

Current President is Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.

According to the World Bank, Mexico ranks thirteenth in the world as regards GDP and has the fourth largest per-capita income in Latin America, following Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica.

It is firmly established as an upper middle-income country. Since the economic crisis of 1994–1995, the country has made an impressive economic recovery. According to the director for Colombia and Mexico of the World Bank, the population below the poverty level has decreased from 24.2% to 17.6% in the general population and from 42% to 27.9% in rural areas from 2000-2004.

Mexico has a mixed economy that recently entered the trillion dollar class. It contains a mixture of modern and outmoded industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector. The number of state-owned enterprises in Mexico has fallen from over a thousand in 1982 to fewer than one hundred in 2005. Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution, and airports. Mexico is also the fourth largest oil producer in the world.

Mexico has opened its markets to free trade like few other countries have done, lowering its trade barriers with more than forty countries in twelve Free Trade Agreements, including Japan and the European Union. The United States, however, remains Mexico's single largest trading partner, accounting for more than 85% of the country's trade. Government authorities anticipate that extending its free trade agreements to cover over 90% of its trade will lessen the country's dependence on the United States. The government is seeking to sign an additional agreement with Mercosur.

The standard of living in Mexico is higher than most of other countries in Latin America drawing people from places like Argentina, Brazil or Cuba to the country in search for better opportunities. With the recent economic growth, most middle- and high-income families live in single houses, commonly found within a walled village, called a fraccionamiento. The reason these places are the most popular among the middle and upper classes is that they offer a sense of security, since most of them are within walls and have surveillance, and living in one also provides social status, due to the infrastructure of most of these villages. Swimming pools or golf clubs, and/or some other commodities are found in these fraccionamientos. Houses inside them tend to be of higher quality, and larger than other homes, most of them with at least three or four bedrooms and even maid quarters and laundry. However, the poorer Mexicans live a harsh life. Poverty is specially poignant in the countryside.

In the larger towns, hiring housekeepers or maids is not as common as in the past, but there are still many families that are willing to pay a person, generally a middle aged woman, to come help with the house chores once or twice a week. The gender roles for women in Mexico are generally strict, although this has lessened in the country's upper-classes influenced by Anglo cultural trends and some Mexican women are challenging patriarchal societal mores where males continue to practice "machismo", a major Latin American cultural norm (yet is stereotyped) of men are strong, self-reliant and aggressive.