The Spanish word for “wow!” is “guau!” pronounced like wow, but with a soft g sound in front.
Since 2004, Mexican pollster and academic Guadalupe González has conducted a national poll every two years for Mexico’s Center For Research And Teaching In Economics (CIDE). This year’s edition was conducted in the second half of last year. And there’s a lot of “guau!” to it.
“A survey is like a mirror,” González said. “Sometimes we look at it and see things we don’t want to see.”
The first number that jumps out from the survey is 42. That’s the percentage of Mexicans who said that, if they could, they’d live someplace outside their country.
“It reflects that many Mexicans are looking for a better standard of living – whether in Mexico or abroad,” González said.
There’s a paradox to that number.
“What’s driving this are economic gains,” González said.
In other words, the better off you are, the more you want. No wonder folks in the United States are so transient.
It was such a surprising number that pollsters went back and asked followup questions. They found four things were prompting that inquietude, and the subsequent desire to go outside the country:
1) The need to find a job.
2) The desire to reunite family.
3) A desire for better education.
4) Insecurity in Mexico due to drug violence.
But there’s a caveat: Mexicans have also become much more risk-averse. Four years ago, 30 percent said they would be willing to emigrate, even if it meant doing so without papers. In the 2012 poll, that number had dropped to 14 percent. And, not surprisingly, the more educated and well-informed, the more risk-averse the respondents were. However, a corollary to that is that the better-educated are now more willing than ever to legally live outside the country, which leads González to worry about a possible Mexican “brain drain” in the future.
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